Les Crayères

Les Crayères Review at-a-glance

Awards: Two Michelin Stars

+Really excellent ingredient quality that is complemented by the kitchen’s cooking.

+Grand setting in the Domaine Les Crayeres hotel with a classic luxury dining room.

-Pacing was a little uneven with the meal dragging in the second half.

Review Rating: 92/100

Verdict: If you are looking for a fine dining meal in the Reims area you will likely narrow down your choice to two restaurants - two star Les Crayères and the newly minted three star L’Assitte Champenoise. While Les Crayères is the lesser restaurant in Michelin’s eyes, I can comfortably say I thought it was the better of the two establishments. In my view, the ingredients at Les Crayères were of higher quality, and the flavor combinations were much more convincing. As an added bonus, the setting at Les Crayères in an old Chateau in the heart of Reims with a dining room that exudes old world class is fantastic and exactly what you want when having a Michelin meal in Champagne.

Price I Paid: €155 for 5-course menu

Value: 14/20

Les Crayères Background

Les Crayères has a long and interesting history that gives it a special place amongst the gourmet restaurants in the Champagne region. Housed in a five-star hotel in downtown Reims, Les Crayères’ location is exactly what you would expect from one of the best restaurants in one of the most exclusive (and expensive) wine regions in France. For many years the restaurant was run by Gérard Boyer who held and maintained three stars at the restaurant for almost two decades. Boyer retired in 2003 and the restaurant received the customary demotion to two stars as part of the chef change in the kitchen. Current head chef Philippe Mille took over the restaurant in 2009, strangely losing both stars in that year’s Michelin guide before earning them both back only three years later in 2012. While Chef Mille has not been able to get back the elusive third star Les Crayères had under Boyer, his cooking has an excellent reputation and is often compared favorably to the three star L’Assitte Champenoise only a short drive away. Prior to taking over Les Crayères, Chef Mille trained at some of the best kitchens in Paris including the Ritz, Le Pre Catelan, and Restaurant Drouant.

Les Crayères offers a number of different menus including a la carte choices as well as tasting menus of varying length including a 5-course menu for €155, a chef’s choice menu with no courses listed for €215, and a 7-course menu featuring many luxury ingredients for €295. When I visited, they also offered a white truffle tasting menu which was very tempting but slightly too rich for my blood at €390. I drank sparingly during my meal but for those with the means Les Crayères wine list has great depth in champagnes that befit its location in a luxury hotel in Reims.

What I ate at Les Crayères

The meal had a rocky start - despite making a reservation for noon the restaurant did not open until 12:30 PM. This is actually the second time I have had this happen in France at a Michelin star restaurant so I guess I should stop making noon reservations. The hotel handled this about as well as possible, sitting me in the bar and serving some small bites including parmesan crisps and a small salmon tart. All were very well made, the texture on the tarts and crisps being top-notch. 

The first proper course of the meal was wild shellfish with creamy cauliflower and iodized cabbage. The cauliflower puree was silky smooth and all of the shellfish was excellent quality, the mussels in particular miles away from what I get at the supermarket. I did think the dish could have used something a bit more, maybe a touch of caviar to class it up a bit? Overall it just felt more like an amuse-bouche than the first course of a tasting menu.

I swapped out the second course for a dish off the white truffle tasting menu, seared scallops with capellini D'Angelo cooked with local hard cheese and topped with white truffles. This was everything that a white truffle dish should be - intoxicating aromas paired with a rich cream sauce that lifts the truffles without overpowering it. The scallops were also strong specimens, having great natural sweetness and being of higher standard than the ones I had at L'Assiette Champenoise the day before. My only complaint is the shaving of truffles could have been a tad bigger.

The main course was a filet of duck stuffed foie gras served with vanilla beetroot, duck jus, and red wine. As a lover of duck and foie gras, I was pretty excited to see both ingredients on the menu but the actual dish was a little lackluster. Technically impressive, the breast was stripped of the skin, stuffed with foie gras, and then covered in a thick sauce. This created a visually striking presentation but lacked texture as I found myself missing that crispy skin from a more traditionally pan-seared duck breast.  The vanilla beetroot served with the duck was a pleasant surprise, the vanilla going surprisingly good and pairing well with the rich jus. 

In lieu of a cheese board, the tasting menu included a composed dish of chaource, served as a foam with hazelnut oil, watercress juice, and caramelized brioche. Chaource is a french cheese produced in the champagne region so it was nice to see a focus on a local product in a very nicely put together dish. Personally, I would have preferred a more standard selection of cheeses but that is no fault of the dish. 

Coffee ice cream and foam with a coffee-soaked biscuit and cookies was everything a coffee dessert should be, embracing the bitterness of the coffee while balancing it out slightly with sugar. Textures were spot on as the light airy foam provided the perfect contrast to the crisp biscuit. The meal then concluded with a nice plate of petit fours which were all capably made. Overall this was a strong showing from the pastry section.