Partner of the new wine tourism circuit “La Petite Vadrouille de Bourgogne”, the director Lucie Brindjonc presented the establishment this Wednesday, June 29 as the summer season begins: “the top of the range is doing well”.
“Le Cèdre is a beautiful brand, a reference for years,” says Lucie Brindjonc, general manager of L’Hostellerie Le Cèdre & Spa Beaune since May 2019. A reference presented by the director this Wednesday, June 29, 2022, on the sidelines of the launch of the “La Petite Vadrouille de Bourgogne” wine tourism circuit.
The establishment, labeled Authentic Hotel & Cruises as well as Vignobles & Découvertes, offers 40 rooms from 27 to 45m², a Nuxe spa with three cabins, a gourmet restaurant with 80 seats, a lounge bar with fireplace and three seminar rooms. The establishment employs 40 people on permanent contracts and achieves an annual turnover of around four million euros in normal times.
Complete renovation completed in 2021
Located a few minutes walk from the city center of Beaune, the five-star hotel in the wine capital of Burgundy is the property of the Lyon entrepreneur Amaury Rostagnat who launched a complete renovation of the establishment in 2019, t completed in the winter of 2021.
Easily accessible by the boulevards, the hotel is nevertheless quiet. “People are isolated, we manage to disconnect them. That’s our strength, making sure they can take their time, for a drink in front of the fireplace in winter, breakfast on the terrace in summer, ”explains the director.
The Clos du Cèdre restaurant takes place in an old 19th century master-winemaker’s house. At the foot of the cedar which gives its name to the establishment. Chef Jordan Billan was awarded his first Michelin Guide star last March.
“With a kitchen CAP, you can finish starred”
Passionate about her business, Lucie Brindjonc is a member of the Union des Métiers et des Industries de l’Hôtellerie de Côte-d’Or (UMIH) and President of the Hoteliers Club of Beaune.
The director of Le Cèdre underlines the advantages of the high-end hotel and catering industry: “it’s the only job where with a CAP in cooking, you can end up starred and on the front of the stage”. “If you like what you do and you want to, you can go up quickly”.
The search for excellence can be a driving force for the teams: “We don’t want to exceed expectations for the principle, we really want people to give themselves the opportunity to create ‘wow!’ every day and try to make sure that the customers will come back”.
Thus some customers are loyal to each sale of wines from the Hospices de Beaune or regularly stop off on the road to Saint-Tropez. The team knowing their habits and preferences.
“Beaune has become a destination”
Post-health crisis, “the top of the range is doing well”, notes Lucie Brindjonc, in particular because “the French played the game right away” with customers coming from Paris, Burgundy in general or Dijon in particular. .
With the resumption of travel from the United States, Americans constitute half of the customers for the month of July which begins. Europeans, including the Swiss, are also present. The month of August is announced with a greater proportion of French people before a new return of Americans in September.
Attendance for the year promises to be higher than in 2019. Stays tend to lengthen with higher average prices than before. The average number of nights per stay went from 1.7 to 2.3. “Beaune has become a destination and not just a stage”, analyzes Lucie Brindjonc.
A thousand euros for a top-of-the-range weekend for two
“The French want to move, to have fun without blowing up budgets, without going far, without taking the plane”, underlines the director as the trend of revenge stays on the health crisis develops.
Rates start from 200 or 320 euros for a Comfort room, depending on the low or high season.
A weekend for two people at Le Cèdre with one night, access to the spa, and a meal at the gourmet restaurant with a nice bottle is estimated at 1,000 euros. “There, you disconnect, you go around the market on Saturday morning, you can come back by bike, it’s great,” boasts the director.
“People from the surrounding area are still discovering a region”
Although Beaune is well known to the people of Dijon in particular, the top-of-the-range setting allows you to get away from it all without leaving the Côte-d’Or, while the Hospices de Beaune have reviewed the tourist welcome and developed new activities.
At the start of this 2022 season in particular, residents of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, coming from Auxerre or Dole for example, stayed at Le Cèdre.
“It was the first time they came, their children had offered them the stay, they were super-happy and quite disappointed with themselves to have waited thirty years before doing so”, comments the director. “It’s quite nice to have people from the surrounding area who are still discovering a region.”
Jean-Christophe Tardivon
The new “Little Vadrouille de Bourgogne” wine tourism circuit
The Beaunois tourist office accompanies the “Little Vadrouille de Bourgogne”
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