The Place
Over the years, since the Hostellerie du Moulin’s inclusion in our first edition, we have received a steady flow of readers’ reports approving of this imaginatively converted flour mill at Flagy, just an hour from Paris.
The setting, with tables in the grassy garden beside the stream that still gently turns the mill wheel, is idyllic, and creates a blissfully soporific effect. Beyond the neat gardens you look out on to cultivated fields which, until the 1950s, supplied the grain that was milled here. The heavy beams, wheels and pulleys of the mill dominate the cosy sitting room, and the bedrooms, named after cereals, are as quirkily captivating as you would hope in a building of this character; space is at a premium, and low beams lead some guests to move about with a permanent stoop.
The chef specializes mainly in traditional dishes, and the menu and carte have English translations, underlying the Moulin’s popularity with British travellers. After running the hotel for more than 20 years, Claude Scheidecker recently retired.We haven’t visited under the new regime, but are relieved to hear that M. Navarro is following his predecessor’s example and keeping his prices admirably low. More reports please.