Rue du Clos de la Chaux, Puy-de-Dôme
Rate on request
No payment now. A room preference is a request, not guaranteed availability. Personal confirmation within 24 hours.
Every traveller knows the best way to discover a region: find a friend who grew up there. A friend knows which cheese is worth the detour and which wines the locals keep for themselves. At Origines, in the village of Le Broc near Issoire, that friend is the chef. Adrien Descouls grew up in the Puy-de-Dôme, and his small hotel and restaurant amount to a tour of his home ground, served at the table.
Like most country friends, he lives at the top of a steep road. The house is modern, set against the ruins of a medieval castle above the village, and it opens so widely onto the landscape that the light inside shifts with every hour. Guests are greeted with a welcome drink, along with a bar of chocolate that nods to the chef's family history. Each of the eleven rooms and suites looks either towards the mountains or onto the old castle walls, and the mountain side is the better choice.
Every friend has a family story, and this one's is a grandfather who spent a lifetime walking these hills. His spirit runs through the house, which is less a place for lingering indoors than a base camp with uncommonly good beds, where the day is meant to be spent outside and the evening at the table.
Dinner is when the friend really starts talking. Over six or eight courses he introduces his region, and the dish that best captures it is built on the green lentils of Le Puy, the humble pulse of the Auvergne treated like a delicacy. Later a cheese trolley arrives carrying the region in all its strength, and the wines poured alongside come from local vineyards whose bottles rarely travel. The staff manage to be polished without stiffness, and by the end of the evening the chef tends to come out to the tables, as any good host would.
The next day the tour moves outdoors, as the grandfather would surely have wanted. Breakfast comes first, and the conversation of the night before carries on in a lighter key, over local charcuterie and a brioche from the house's own oven, taken in the glass-walled dining room. Then the hills around Le Broc wait for walkers, and the volcanoes of the Chaîne des Puys and the Sancy lie within an hour's drive, with Issoire's great Romanesque church for a stop on the way home.
Like any friend's house, this one has its quirks. It is better at feeding guests than pampering them: it offers no pool or spa, and the decoration can feel a little clinical. Some rooms are snug, with blinds that let the dawn in early. Origines is for gourmets willing to drive a long way for a meal, and for couples after a few quiet days. Two nights work well, the first for dinner and the second for the hills. Summer brings long walks and terrace evenings, while winter belongs to the cheese trolley.
Most friends will show visitors around their home ground for a day. This one does it in eight courses, then offers a bed facing the hills where his grandfather walked.
Named for the hills
The rooms carry names taken from the landscape around them: Andésite and Améthyste for its stones, Gentiane and Giroflée for its plants, Aubier for the sapwood of its trees, and Sancy for the massif on the western horizon.
Nine of the eleven rooms look out over the village of Le Broc to the volcanoes, through windows that run the width of the wall; the Panoramic rooms lie directly below the restaurant. The two Terrace rooms trade that horizon for a balcony facing the castle ruins. All are finished in wood and volcanic stone, with a walk-in shower.
The restaurant sits above the drop behind a wall of glass, in a white room lined with raw wood and volcanic stone, and the menus run from three to eight courses. On the castle side the windows frame the ruined walls instead of the plain. A single table for up to four, Le Bureau du Chef, is set backstage, behind the dining room.
The green lentil of Le Puy is one of the local products the kitchen names as a foundation, alongside the blond peas of the Planèze, Mézenc beef and verbena. Sea fish are left out in favour of river fish, and much of the vegetable side comes from the chef's permaculture garden. Allergies and intolerances are handled when booking.
Three small stone terraces run along the castle's old rampart walk, with low chairs and tables looking over the roofs of Le Broc to the volcanoes, the Sancy to the west. They are used for a drink, a book or the sunset. A fourth, modern terrace on the other side of the house faces the chapel and the plateau's park.
At a glance
Where
Rue du Clos de la Chaux, 63500 Le Broc, Puy-de-Dôme; at the end of the Plateau de la Chaux at 450 m, below the ruins of the medieval castle, beside a chapel; about 40 minutes south of Clermont-Ferrand and 2 km from the A75 (exit 15); Issoire station 6 km, Clermont-Ferrand station and Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne airport 44 km
Why this one
From the Forez to the Sancy.
The restaurant is upstairs.
About a hundred local wines.
The Edit Notes
The categories differ less by size than by what the window shows. The three suites, Gentiane, Giroflée and Saphir, face the mountains; two have an ethanol fireplace and Saphir a massage bath. The Panoramic and Superior rooms look over the village to the mountains. The two Terrace rooms, Courtine and Sancy, have a balcony but face the castle ruins and the house's quiet side, with no panoramic view. For the volcano horizon, book any category except Terrace.
The restaurant serves dinner from Tuesday to Saturday and lunch only on Friday and Saturday; it is closed on Sunday and Monday. A stay that starts on a Sunday therefore has no dinner at the house on its first night. Bistrot Basalte in Issoire, about ten minutes by car, opens from Sunday to Thursday and covers those evenings. The house also schedules special evenings, such as an annual game night in November, announced on its site.
From the A75, exit 15 leads to Le Broc, and the road then rises through hairpin bends to the top of the village. The signs to follow read "Origines - Restaurant panoramique", up to the end of the Rue du Clos de la Chaux, a dead end where the house has its own parking with charging points. Without a car, Issoire station is six kilometres away; the volcanoes, Issoire and the surrounding villages are all easier to reach by car.
Every room and suite is laid out for two adults; a cot or a child's bed can be added on request, but there are no family rooms or connecting rooms. Dogs are accepted, with a basket and bowls provided. There is no pool and no spa, so the time between breakfast and dinner belongs to the terraces, the bar's lounges and the country outside. One room is adapted for guests with reduced mobility; the parking has charging points for electric cars.
The price question
The money buys a bed under the same roof as Adrien Descouls's restaurant, and a window onto a horizon of volcanoes from most rooms. It does not buy a resort: there is no pool, no spa, no room for a family, and the restaurant closes two days a week. The real comparison is a long drive for one dinner against two nights that include it.
Book two nights from Tuesday to Saturday, with the first evening at the restaurant and the day between spent in the hills, and choose a room on the mountain side. A family with older children, or a stay built around a pool, works better elsewhere.
Les Roches, Le Lavandou
Forty rooms and suites set directly above the sea in the bay of Aiguebelle, with L'Oursin, the restaurant of chef Antoine Gras, a pool and a spa; the hotel closes from early October to early May.
Toile Blanche, Saint-Paul de Vence
Twenty-two suites, two restaurants and three pools in 20,000 m² of gardens below Saint-Paul de Vence, run by the Leroy family, with contemporary art shown in a gallery and across the grounds.
The Extra Edit
Confirmed with your quote
Something extra, from us.
Ask for a stay and a person takes it from there. Any hotel privileges that apply, and a personal Extra arranged by us, are confirmed with your bookable quote.
Tell us which Extra appeals in your request. Nothing is charged when you ask, and no upgrade is promised.
A drink, a meal or an experience: chosen by you, arranged by us.
A person confirms your request within 24 hours.
Rate on request
Personal confirmation within 24 hours