A table d'hôtes is the promise of not getting back in the car at night. You dine where you sleep, around one menu, at one table. At the Château de la Huberdière, in Nazelles-Négron, that table is laid in the evening, and I cook it myself.
Here is what it really is, what it is not, and how it works in Touraine across the seasons.
What is a table d'hôtes, exactly?
A table d'hôtes is an evening meal served on site to guests staying the night, around a single menu and a shared table. The French consumer authority applies three simple tests: one menu, one table, and diners who sleep under the same roof.
What follows matters and is rarely said: La Huberdière is a 3-star charming hotel with 10 rooms, not a bed and breakfast. We have kept the spirit of the host's table, not the legal status. In practice that changes two things in your favour: service is done, cleared and run as it is in a hotel, but you eat what I decided to cook that day, with no menu and no choice.
Anyone who wants to order à la carte will be better served in town. Anyone who wants to dine in a dressing gown ten metres from their bed is in exactly the right place. The full details are on the château dining page.
A table d'hôtes in Touraine: which evenings, which season?
From 1 May to 30 September, the table is served every evening of the week except Sunday. Outside that window it opens by reservation, from six people, and there is never a service at midday.
This seasonality is not a whim. Home cooking holds together because one person holds it together, and one person cannot serve six covers on a Tuesday in February with the same care as a table of twenty in July. Rather than opening half-heartedly all year, we prefer to say plainly which evenings the table is there.
In practice, if you come between October and April, tell us when you book that you would like to dine on site. We confirm the date, or we point you honestly towards the tables in Amboise. At midday the 14-hectare grounds are yours, and most of our guests eat out while they are sightseeing.
What is served in the evening: boards and sharing plates
Evening service runs from 6 pm to 8.30 pm, around sharing plates rather than a three-course menu. Local cheeses, fine charcuterie, vegetables from the kitchen garden, set down in the middle of the table.
In detail: salads, tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, a board of Touraine cheeses, grilled vegetables, Parma ham with melon or figs depending on the season, olives from Puglia, artichokes and shavings of parmesan. There is Touraine and there is Italy on the same plate, and that is deliberate.
This is not a gastronomic dinner and we do not pretend otherwise. It is the meal you actually want after a day of châteaux: generous, simple, and leaving room for conversation.
The Thursday Italian dinner, the real reason to stay a Thursday
On Thursday evening the dinner is entirely Italian: a set menu served at 8 pm, on the terrace when the weather allows, otherwise in the drawing rooms. It is the one night of the week when you sit down to a proper built meal, and it must be booked in advance.
I am Italian. This dinner is not a decorative theme hung on a French château: it is the cooking I grew up with, made with vegetables from the kitchen garden here. Fresh pasta, seasonal vegetables, and a few ingredients I still bring back from Italy because they have no local equivalent.
It is the meal that comes up most often in what our guests tell us afterwards, and it is also what persuades some couples to build their weekend around a Thursday rather than a Friday. If you are hesitating over dates, that is worth knowing.
Do you have to stay at the château to dine at the table?
Yes, and there is no exception: evening service is reserved for people sleeping at the château, outside private hire. We take no passing covers, not even for two.
Better to say it plainly, since the question reaches us every week: La Huberdière is not a restaurant and will not become one. The kitchen is my workplace, not a room open to the public, and it serves the 10 rooms of the estate first. A table that takes in the town can no longer sit down with its guests, and that is precisely the point of a table d'hôtes.
If you are looking for somewhere to dine without staying the night, Amboise and Vouvray have very good tables and we will gladly point you to them. If you want to dine and then go straight up to bed, book your stay at the château and the table follows.
Breakfast the next morning, served from 8.30 to 10.30 am
Breakfast is served every morning from 8.30 to 10.30 am, at 15 € per person. It is billed separately from the room, which leaves you free to take it or not.
On the table: hot drinks, freshly squeezed oranges, Manse fruit juices, cut fresh fruit, bread and pastries, avocado toast, cheese, yoghurt and homemade granola. Eggs are available on request, with a 3 € supplement.
One useful point for 2027: breakfast is no longer included in the room rate. It is a choice about transparency, so that guests leaving early to reach Chenonceau at opening time no longer pay for a meal they do not eat.
And for a group: the table of a château on exclusive use
When the estate is taken on exclusive use, catering follows a different logic: it is booked separately, from 90 € per person based on twenty guests. The platter on Friday evening, the aperitif and dinner on Saturday, brunch on Sunday.
It is the only arrangement, and it is a position we stand by: the château kitchen is not handed over to groups. You will do neither the shopping nor the washing up, and you will not spend your Saturday afternoon watching an oven. In exchange, you do not cook yourself.
Breakfast on Saturday and Sunday is included in the exclusive hire, drinks are not: you are welcome to bring your own wine, with corkage at 8 € per bottle. How a private weekend actually works is set out in our article on renting a château with friends.
Where to eat near Amboise on evenings without a table
On Sundays and out of season you have to go out, and it is better to know that before you arrive. Amboise is ten minutes away by car, Vouvray fifteen, and both have real tables rather than tourist signage.
Our advice, learned by sending guests out at random in the early years: book, even on a Tuesday. The good addresses in the valley are small and closed two days a week, often Sunday evening and Monday, which is exactly when you will need them. Ask us the day before and we will call for you.
To build two days that hold together around those dinners, our itinerary for a romantic weekend near Amboise sets out the order of the visits, and our guide to bed and breakfasts in Amboise explains what people are really looking for in a place with character.
Tell us your dates and whether you would like to dine on site, and we will set the table alongside your stay. You will have a proposal within 24 hours.
