Nestled in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons has built a reputation as a gastronomic and event destination under the guidance of Raymond Blanc OBE.
Step into the five-star luxury and sustainable hospitality world with this exclusive interview featuring Jamie Purcell, Director of Sales at Le Manoir, A Belmond Hotel.
Jamie shares what makes this iconic venue exceptional – from Michelin accolades and sustainability to bespoke corporate events that fuse creative flavour and flair.
Jamie introduces Le Manoir
Jamie, share a little about your role and how you came to be working with Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons
I’m the director of sales at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, A Belmond Hotel, in Oxfordshire. I previously worked in London Hotels for around 12 years, all in five-star luxury properties, but grew up in the Cotswolds and lived locally to this beautiful property. I started out in country house hotels in Gloucestershire and in Wiltshire too so, when I saw the opportunity here for this role, it was an easy decision.
Tell us about Le Manoir and what made it such a draw for you.
It’s a beautiful property – and Le Manoir was always kind of the aspiration in terms of the country house hotels, especially on the food and beverage side. It’s a gastronomic destination in the in the UK.
Raymond Blanc OBE has been here for 41 years – last year was the hotel’s 40th anniversary.
Since he took over the house and opened it as the hotel, he’s had two Michelin Stars for every single year. That level of consistency in standards for 41 years is an incredible achievement.
So, it was really exciting for me to join the team here and use my experience across both country houses and high-end London luxury hotels. And while Le Manoir is much smaller than those, it’s far more personal. I say ‘smaller’ yet is has the same number of staff as some of the hotels I worked at before and we have 32 bedrooms and some of those had 300!”
That must be incredible for the service you provide?
“Yes, exactly! Service has to be absolutely top of the list in terms of priorities for us. It shows too, because we received 3 Michelin Keys last year, a huge part of which is based on the service of the hotel. It’s a top accolade for this size of hotel and a testament to the service of the team here.”
“We also have a Green Michelin star for the sustainability.”
Tell us more about that!
The Michelin Green Star is an annual award that was first introduced in 2020 to highlight restaurants that are “at the forefront” of the industry when it comes to sustainability. So, we are audited for it and we have to prove that we go beyond culinary excellence to include ethical and environmental considerations.
It’s a big part of what we do here, being responsible for how we grow our food, and even how we how we work generally in the hotel. We’re considerate to the environment and try to do things the right way really. So the Le Manoir garden is all organic and we produce a lot of the food for the restaurant from the garden.
Share more about the hotel with our readers!
Before it became Le Manoir, the property was the private home of Lord and Lady Cromwell. When Raymond Blanc was in his 20s he opened a restaurant in the UK, in Oxford. He achieved a Michelin Star within his first year and quickly established a reputation for excellence. And when he saw this property was for sale in a magazine, he fell in love with it. It has incredible gardens, and while Raymond’s mother was an amazing home cook, his dad was a brilliant gardener, and they passed those passions on to Raymond.
As the story goes, Raymond drove to the house, knocked on the front door, and Lady Cromwell answered. The Cromwells had previously dined in Raymond’s Oxford Restaurant and recognised him from there. It was one of the last meals Lady Cromwell shared with her late husband – his passing was why the house was put on the market. He bought the property, knowing what he could achieve and create with these amazing gardens. A huge amount of our fruit and vegetables in the restaurant come from the garden.
Le Manoir’s gardens are incredible
Thank you. We have some really creative, and interesting vegetable varieties – 250 varieties of veg and herbs. I think we even have nearly 125 apple tree varieties in our orchard, plus pears. And we’re excited to now have some beehives too. We even have of Mushroom Valley! It’s a gastronomic heaven – from our garden, to our kitchen, to your plate!
Meetings and events here don’t come with the ‘Michelin Star’ food served within the restaurant, but you know its excellent quality. It’s cooked by the same chefs cooking, using the same high-quality of ingredients. Your guests will always remember the food for the best reasons (and they’ll never leave disappointed about a beige buffet).
Le Manoir is becoming an event destination hotel it its own right too, hasn’t it, in addition to the incredible foodie side?
Yes! We’ve made huge sort of strides in the whole hotel in terms of creating the hotel as a destination. We have 32 bedrooms in total – ten in the main Manor house and a courtyard which has a further 22 bedrooms.
And then the event space is called La Belle Epoque and it’s beautiful space. In the dining room area of it you can seat up to 50 people for a dinner. It’s quite a versatile room and can be used for a meeting as well.
Then we have a Conservatory added on, with a private entrance, glass ceilings, glass walls, beautiful bright space, especially on a day like this. [It was beautiful day when we spoke to James for this interview – we experienced Le Manoir in an amazing light].
We have a private garden for the event space too. So, you’ve got that dining room bit, which is a little bit more traditional in style, with wood panelled walls, the Conservatory, a lovely light and bright open space – with bifold doors that open out into the garden.
Today, we’re hosting a car event and they’ve driven a super car into the private garden with guests enjoying drinks around it. The meeting element of that event took place indoors. So, it is a creative and fun space for corporate events, in postcard-perfect surroundings.
We offer activities too, which we often tie in with a corporate event agenda for clients. We’ve got the Raymond Blanc Cookery School and the Raymond Blanc Gardening School, and we often have groups who hire the spaces together. They’re great for around ten 10 guests in each school, so most corporates will experience both schools and swap the groups out through the day.
Another example of the way we work with clients is personalising the experience. We recently hosted a skin care company which was launching a face cream that had benefits including sleep enhancement. Our team researched sleep enhancing food, and the client’s guests cooked the food in the Cookery School, tying into the event theme.
We like to personalise things. We like to make things bespoke. We really care about who the company is, what they’re trying to achieve, what they want to get out of the day. And we work with them to really understand their brief, so it comes to life when it’s here.
I love that – we enjoy working that way with our Bien Venue clients – it’s so important for those unique event experiences. And site visits work well for these types of events too, don’t they?
Absolutely! Site visits are really useful. We can walk people around and showcase what we can do. It’s not like the cookie cutter venues, it’s not just a boardroom where you have a board meeting. There are lots of different types of events we can host and some quite creative ones.
And with the gardens, we can show the seven separate areas for hosting drinks receptions. For example, in the middle of the orchard there’s a mown circular area of grass in the middle, which is beautiful to host an alfresco dinner or a drinks reception surrounded by all the trees and countryside. It works for launches of products like cars too, and for team offsites and away days.
La Belle Epoque really is the main event space. It holds 50 people for dinner in the dining room. You could also host 30 on one long table in the Conservatory. Both spaces have no fixed furniture, so we can change the setups around and use them however works best for each event. Some people prefer to host their meeting in the Conservatory, boardroom style or theatre style – facing the screen, and then have lunch in the dining room area.
You’re in a great location too!?
Yes – a lot of people love it here because we are very close to Oxford and less than an hour from London. Yet, we’re in the middle of the countryside and you really have that feel of detaching and switching off from the city life. You can immerse yourself – it’s great for creatives too – a different environment.
Tell us more about sustainability at the hotel. You have that Raymond Blanc ethos of seasonality, foraging and little to no waste, but how does that translate to the hotel itself? I imagine it but be a challenge with such an old building?
Yes, it can be, but we work hard to do what we can here. To start with, all the food waste is processed on site for compost that goes back to the gardens.
Even our wine corks are recycled or repurposed by our gardeners into bug houses.
Nice touch!
All our food from the garden is organic – we don’t use any pesticides or any chemicals on the fruit and veg. And we don’t accept any single-use-plastic or polystyrene packaging.
We purchase food and beverage supplies and equipment made with credibly sustainable practises and from local farmers.
We have a zero landfill policy.
In terms of the hotel, all in room amenities are recyclable or compostable – even our in-room coffee pods. Our slippers and soap bars can be taken home in provided recyclable bags, and we use eco cleaning products. Our energy is sourced from renewable sources, and we recycle all toner cartridges with proceeds sent to local charities.
We also ask guests how often they want bedding changed if they’re staying multiple nights, and other initiatives like that to encourage sustainability. We’re audited and checked on that too – we work with a company called Earth Check, which is a rigorous auditing.
We’ve also joined Zeller’s sustainability platform to help measure our sustainability performance and create plans to deliver on our goals – we’re aiming for net zero by 2030. And our work extends beyond the hotel – Le Manoir helps to fund the local bus service from Oxford to Great Milton to help reduce the number of cars travelling to the village.
And as you say, with the main building being 15th century, it’s an old property, so I think we have to work harder to achieve our sustainability goals compared with newer properties. We’re always trying to get ahead of the game and take advantage of new technologies.
Sustainability, as well as being a main focus of Raymond’s ethos, is a big part of Belmond’s Value, and of LVMH, Belmond’s parent company – we have a great synergy with the group.
Plan your next unforgettable event
From its award-winning cuisine and organic gardens to its bespoke event spaces and commitment to sustainability, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons offers a unique setting for corporate events, retreats, and brand experiences.
And our team at Bien Venue is here to help bring your event vision to life, so get in touch today to enquire about Le Manoir or discover the perfect venue for your next event.
Have you tried our free venue finding service?…
Bien Venue is a boutique creative agency that specialises in free UK venue finding. We offer more than workshops, training, conferences, or off-site meetings venue searches. We also book and manage away days, residential training events, awards, roadshows, team building, and more. Plus, we offer group accommodation management and event-specific bedroom allocations.