Versailles, Expanded: Airelles Unveils Le Pavillon des Jardiniers

It is already the only hotel within the grounds of the Château de Versailles. Now Airelles Le Grand Contrôle has grown, unveiling Le Pavillon des Jardiniers, a newly restored wing that adds a handful of suites and a new garden restaurant to one of the most extraordinary places to stay in France.

Le Grand Contrôle, built in 1681 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of the Hall of Mirrors, has always been an intimate address of just fifteen rooms and suites. Le Pavillon des Jardiniers extends the estate into its gardens, restoring a historic pavilion in the same painstaking spirit and adding new accommodation for guests who want to live, however briefly, inside the world of the Sun King.

The only hotel within the grounds of Versailles, now grown into its gardens.

At the heart of the new pavilion is La Table des Jardiniers, a garden dining room created by Alain Ducasse, who already oversees the Michelin-starred cuisine at Le Grand Contrôle. Where the main restaurant reimagines the royal feasts of the 17th and 18th centuries, La Table des Jardiniers looks to the garden itself, a lighter, produce-led counterpoint set among the greenery of Versailles.

It is a rare thing, a genuinely new reason to return to a hotel that already offers one of travel's singular experiences: after-hours access to the Château, when the Hall of Mirrors is lit for guests alone.