Château de Courban

The story

The house was built in 1820 on the ruins of a château destroyed during the Revolution. The Vandendriessche family bought it in 1998, opened guest rooms in 2000, a four-star hotel in 2004 and a spa in 2011; today Frédéric and Mylène Vandendriessche run the 26-room hotel, some of whose rooms are in a sixteenth-century dovecote. The restaurant lost its star in 2024 after a change of chef and won it back in 2025 under Maxime Lesobre.

Vincent Ferreira, from Digoin in Saône-et-Loire, succeeded Lesobre in February 2026 after more than five years at Maison Lameloise and time at L'Oustau de Baumanière, Sketch in London and Alain Ducasse's Bastide de Moustiers. The star was confirmed in the March 2026 guide, and he works alongside pastry chef Saé Hasegawa, who has been at the château for more than ten years.

The cooking

Ferreira describes his cooking as sincere and instinctive, built around vegetables and seasonal produce from within about an hour's drive, with Burgundy's farmers and breeders setting the pace; Charolles beef and organic Angus from the Morvan have both appeared on his early menus. The chef keeps a kitchen garden at the château, and eggs come from the estate's own hens. Cheeses are chosen by the maître d'hôtel from a local affineur, the cellar book lists more than 1,000 wines, and the dining room is a former barn turned into a bright orangery overlooking Italianate gardens, with a large terrace for Sunday lunch in fine weather.