Alain Ducasse at Airelles Versailles: Dining Inside the Palace

To dine at Airelles Le Grand Contrôle is to eat within the grounds of the Château de Versailles itself, in the only hotel ever permitted inside the estate. Presiding over the experience is Alain Ducasse, whose kitchens reimagine the royal feasts of the 17th and 18th centuries for the modern table.

Ducasse's Michelin-starred restaurant at Le Grand Contrôle treats the palace's own history as its source material. The royal menu revisits the classic dishes of French fine dining as they might have been served at Versailles at its height, adjusted to the seasons and to contemporary tastes, in candlelit rooms dressed with Maison Pierre Frey fabrics and 18th-century antiques.

Dinner within the grounds of Versailles, in the only hotel the palace has ever allowed.

With the opening of Le Pavillon des Jardiniers, Ducasse has added a second, lighter register: La Table des Jardiniers, a garden dining room that looks to the estate's own produce for a more relaxed counterpoint to the grandeur of the royal menu. Together they let a guest experience two sides of the Ducasse philosophy without leaving the gardens of Versailles.

The dining is only part of the spell. Guests also enjoy private, after-hours access to the Château, walking the Hall of Mirrors when it is lit for them alone, an experience no other hotel on earth can offer.