Hotel-Restaurant Ricordeau

Wow what a find, beautiful old hotel in charming village surrounded by rolling countryside Excellent staff, friendly yet very professional. Spacious, well appointed rooms with comfy beds, great air conditioning and great views. Absolutely amazing food, just fantastic, this chef really knows his trade. So refreshing to find a family run French hotel with a great pool, landscaped gardens, proper, well cooked French gourmet food and hands on owners. Thanks to all for truly fabulous stay, we will be back soon!!

A charming hotel. We stopped en route from the UK Midlands that morning. Loué is a small village but well-kept and has that feel of pride in its public places that UK villages so often lack. The hotel has a fine-dining restaurant but that was closed on our Tuesday and we ate in the bistro next door (through a connecting internal door). The charming dining room overlooks the terrace and garden and is where breakfast is served. The owners and staff are all pleasant and relaxed. The dinner at the bistro was in the small courtyard (there is an inside room and bar as well) with perhaps 10 tables. The menu isn’t huge but the quality was high. Goats cheese salad, chicken (for which Loué is well-known) supreme and clafoutis, washed down with a local Bergerac red. A poor start to our travel day (a lorry fire on the M40 delaying us by 90 minutes and our tunnel crossing by nearly 3 hours) was immediately redeemed by a perfectly French evening. The room was comfortable, with a good bathroom and linen.

We are rating the hôtel and not the bistro "la table du coq". We found the room not clean enough, with lots of dust in corners of the room, the toilettes were not clean and smelly.. The "terrasse " need à good cleaning as well, there was a distinct impression of neglect... Perhaps the Covid has negatively impacted the standard of the hôtel but it would be important not to rely only on the réputation of the gastronomique restaurant.

I don't normally have any problem writing reviews but Le Ricordeau prompted very mixed feelings.It's a really nice hotel with lovely gardens.We were greeted warmly by the owner but the Superior Room we were given was nothing like the one shown on the web.It had all the basics you need with a nice view over the garden but was a bit dated and the toilet flush needed attention.All a bit of an anticlimax. We had dinner in the Bistro one night and the Restaurant on our second night.The bistro was very busy with locals but the meal was only average.Dinner in the Restaurant was very good but it was very quiet for a saturday night and although the staff were formal and correct they lacked any friendliness and made no concession to the fact we were English.(I know-my fault)However our main gripe was that the Restaurant looked out on to the Terrace which was full of garden furniture which was all in need of a good rub down and varnish.Not very attractive and we couldn't understand why Dinner wasn't set outside as it was scorching hot whilst we were there.Same for breakfast. Somehow Le Ricordeau just didn't quite live up to our expectations.

The hotel is a lovely size with a warm and welcoming staff. Our room was great, with a decoration that was fun without being too imposing. We spent time in the bar playing games and said hello to the goats in the lovely grounds.