Another good reason to visit the Château du Rivau
The years go by and clearly demonstrate how far innovating and surprising are an essential part of Rivau’s DNA. There is always something new happening around the medieval castle’s tall silhouette to delight the eyes, nostrils and mind. And now with this new restaurant, it’s the taste buds’ turn…
Andrea Modesto’s Secret Garden
With the arrival of chef Andrea Modesto, former sous-chef to Joël Robuchon, The Jardin Secret (Secret Garden) invites you to enjoy an original culinary experience that blends local produce, vegetables and flowers from the Rivau gardens with the flavours of his native Italy. Like in Rivau’s first locavore restaurant, La Table des Fées, Andrea will form a link between the estate’s organic farm and the beautifully presented dishes served in his gastronomic restaurant. This is seasonal cuisine, but also wonderfully harmonious and inventive.
And what a setting! The Jardin Secret restaurant has found a perfect home among the roses and grapevines. Even when the thermometer is a little lower, you can still enjoy the setting of a transparent “bubble” transformed into a gastronomic cocoon. In winter, you can dine inside the château walls. But whatever you choose, with a capacity for just 20 diners, you really feel as if you are special here, which in fact is the case. Just judge for yourself!
The appetising dishes at the Jardin Secret…
To access the restaurant, you need to pay admission to the château (discount rate). No matter, because to make the experience complete, why not visit the wonderful gardens that have made the site’s reputation, as well as the cabinet of artistic curiosities inside the château.
Gastronomic cuisine
The Château du Rivau
Dining at the Jardin Secret
A few words about the Château du Rivau
No fewer than 15 themed gardens skilfully take visitors back to childhood through fairytales (Little Poucet, The Enchanted Forest, Alice in Wonderland) and their imagination. Two of the gardens will be providing ingredients for the Jardin Secret restaurant: the garden devoted to wild edible plants and the truffle garden.
Along with their aesthetic qualities and the presence of contemporary art works, the gardens are home to a fragrant traditional rose conservatory (450 varieties) and the vegetable conservatory for the Centre Val de Loire region, with a collection of 50 squash varieties.
The last rays of sunshine on the roses of Rivau…
Along with the gardens, exhibitions in the château and the two restaurants, the Château du Rivau welcomes visitors:
- For a stay in one of the 7 attractive rooms in the hotel
- for a garden escape game
- for weddings or seminars
- for cookery lessons or a tasting of 3 Loire wines (between 12 noon and 3 pm)
- for school trips
- for major events such as the Rose Festival (June), the Jousting Tournaments (August) and the Autumn Flower Festival (October).
In short, plenty of reasons to head for the little village of Lémeré, close by the green way between Richelieu and Chinon, in the Loire Anjou Touraine Regional Nature Park.
The Richelieu Chinon green way