In the elegant wood-paneled restaurant of Cowley Manor, waitress Maria Radu guides me through the culinary whims of the French guests. "They like local products, like grass-fed beef. That's why we have côte de boeuf and hamburgers on the menu," she says. "And they are very happy to get a raw diet of seasonal root vegetables, because the quality of Cotswold produce is the most important thing to the French. That, and the fact that they know our brand."
The new owner of Cowley Manor is Experimental, a trendy French hospitality group that started life as a modest cocktail bar on Rue Saint-Sauveur in Paris. The group is still headquartered in Paris and now includes nine cocktail bars, a glitzy Swiss nightclub and luxury hotels in outposts favored by Europe's glitterati: Venice, Ibiza, Verbier, New York, London and Biarritz.
Cowley Manor, a 19th-century country house a few miles from Cheltenham, is the latest addition and a sign of the overseas market's confidence in a region once best known for its wax coats and Land Rovers.
After a £7 million makeover that lasted six months, Cowley Manor Experimental is an English country house meets the continent, a mix of Italian and French designer furniture, a big city cocktail bar and arts and crafts style wallpaper and carpets with playing card motifs, nods to Alice in Wonderland which was inspired by the woodland folly of the mansion.
The village of Lacock and Lacock Abbey, which formed the exterior of the title character's childhood home in Godric's Hollow and the Hogwarts school respectively in the Harry Potter films, have been attracting southern Europeans for a decade, says Cotswold's Chris Jackson Tourism.
The new crop is not the Potter crowd, but more affluent travelers heading to the Cotswolds to experience quintessential British identity and escape the summer heatwaves in southern Europe, he explains. "It is the built environment that charms them: the old buildings with cozy rooms, bars and experiences [such as afternoon tea]. Although they are often surprised at how early we eat: most restaurants in Spain would still be preparing to open by the time the English restaurants have finished taking orders!"
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"Cotswolds agents are seeing an increase in inquiries from southern European second home buyers," says Gemma Maclaran, Cotswolds expert at Middleton Advisors. "[Southern European buyers] are usually looking for the very traditional, beautiful houses in the Cotswolds," she says. "French buyers in particular choose Georgian properties. The high ceilings and well-proportioned rooms feel quite Parisian, I think."
At the Cotswold Cheese Company outpost in Moreton-in-Marsh, tourists shelter from the rain as a dog sniffs disconsolately at its banishment at the door. At the counter, employees Martha and Halias are busy with a brisk trade in Comte, Brie de Meaux and Spanish olives.
The shop has witnessed an increased number of French, Spanish and Italian tourists in the past two years, says Martha, although they prefer local delicacies such as Ashcome and Rollright cheeses, the latter a washed rind made in Chedworth and inspired by the French Vacherin Mont d'Or. "If you're in Rome, I guess," Martha jokes, although she adds, "tourists staying in Airbnbs might want to buy some pecorino for their pasta."
Marie Faure-Ambroise, 44, is a Parisian socialite and digital marketer who runs the blog My Travel Dreams. A regular visitor to the Cotswolds, Faure-Ambroise enjoys 'the oversized potatoes gratinated with cheddar and the local sausages' served at foodie boozers such as the Bell in Sapperton and the Kings Head Inn in Bledington, and from 'buying wool sweaters' in the rural region. She says that historically her fellow French people were aware of the images of honeystone cottages in the Cotswolds, but not of the name of the Cotswolds, although this is changing.
"It will even become a destination for people who come all the way from Paris," she continues. "The French love the atmosphere and the carte postale appearance of this paradise far away [busy cities] and noise." Faure-Ambroise tells people that the Cotswolds "is like life [out an] English movie cliché: putting on your Barbour and Hunter boots to walk through a rainy village."
Novelist Cristina Marconi was the British correspondent for the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero from 2007 to 2020. Marconi, now based in Milan, says affluent Italians can't get enough of the Cotswolds. "There is a long tradition of Anglomania among the upper classes here," she explains. For Marconi, historical dramas such as Downton Abbey have given Italians the impression that the English countryside is accompanied by the sound of ripping bodices. "The English countryside seems exciting compared to rural Italy and not just the theater of sleepy provincial life."
Meanwhile, Laia Díaz, 36, a journalist from Tarragona, says: "I think many Spaniards are visiting the Cotswolds these days because images of very charming towns have gone viral on social media, even though it is a very expensive place for Spaniards to visit. people. I love Castle Combe and Lower Slaughter, which feel like I'm immersing myself in a Jane Austen novel. In Catalonia there are some very charming towns, but we don't have one beautiful town next to another like in the Cotswolds."
Itineraries offered by Southern European travel companies for 2024 include Spanish market leader Catai's five-day Complete London tour, which takes in the capital's sights including Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon and "la Venecia de los Cotswolds", Bourton-on-Avon and "la Venecia de los Cotswolds". the water. The Celtic Family Short from the Italian package provider Viaggi Avventure Nel Mondo now runs from London to Cornwall, Wales and via the Cotswolds back to the capital.
At the Hotel du Vin in Cheltenham, one of the market town chain's first properties and housed in a three-storey Georgian townhouse, a French couple aged 50 and over puzzle over a menu of afternoon tea with finger sandwiches alongside French bistro classics such as chicken liver parfait and Provençal beef. Yves and Aurelie are disappointed, they admit, when they don't find a local entry on the hotel's extensive wine list.
"We had some sparkling English wine from [Cotswolds vineyard] Woodchester Valley yesterday," says Yves. "Your wine used to be a joke, if you'll forgive me for saying that, but it was really good." "Although it's not champagne yet," Aurelie adds.
Cowley Manor Experimental (01242 870900) offers double rooms from £265 B&B. Hotel du Vin Cheltenham (01242 370584) offers double rooms from £126 B&B.
