Cowley Manor Experimental ‘This is a Marmite hotel’

Fiona Duncan loved the restaurant, spa and cocktails but her room was infuriating and the hip decor left her cold

Back in 2002, Peter and Jessica Frankopan created Cowley Manor as one of the first hip country house hotels, hot on the heels of Babington House. There were rows of designer wellies by the front door (normal now; trendy then), papier mâché animal heads mounted on the wall, a funky bar, a huge billiard table in a room clad in padded leather and a modernist spa, C-side, with two pools. Contemporary bliss-out and stone grandeur, seamlessly blended.

The trouble with hip hotels is that they are rarely enveloping. Cowley Manor had a cool cachet, but I never felt particularly enamoured of it, with its reception rooms all in a row and a lobby that felt blank. As the years rolled on, it became much like any other country house hotel, full of perfectly normal staff and guests, many of them local. The wide terrace and grounds beyond were, and still are, its best feature: they are quite lovely, graced by an upper and lower lake and an Italianate cascade. The diminutive parish church of St Mary stands beside the manor; there is a village pub and a Sunday cricket team and Regency Cheltenham is close by; all quintessentially English.

Fast-forward to 2022, when the Frankopans, who still own hotels in London, Brighton, Amsterdam and Paris, sold Cowley Manor to the French-owned Experimental Group. Three childhood friends, Olivier Bon, Pierre-Charles Cros and Romée de Goriainoff – later joined by a fourth, Xavier Padovani – kicked off their career in hospitality with a masterstroke. Having clocked the cocktail culture that was burgeoning in New York and elsewhere, they shook up Paris with the Experimental Cocktail Club on a small side street in Les Halles. Now they have cocktail bars, wine bars, restaurants and hotels in all sorts of places (London, Menorca and Biarritz to name but three).

They are fun, young and undoubtedly good at cocktails. “We thought we were pretty adept at them before the hotel sold,” says the general manager of Cowley Manor, Stuart Hodges, who, like most of the staff, was retained by the new owners. “We

The mirror in my room was too high to look into. Very Alice in Wonderland. Very hip. Very pointless

bought the best-quality lemon juice to make them – but now we buy the best-quality lemons.”

The cocktail menu is short but zingy: try a Horlicks Milk Punch (named for the family that once owned Cowley) or an Old Cuban, or stay safe with a non-alcoholic Doctor’s Orders or Marine Maid.

The drinks, then, are good; the restaurant, of which more later; is very good. But as for the hotel: the £3 million new-look Cowley Manor is Experimental, for sure, but it’s an experiment which, in my view, doesn’t really work.

Dorothée Meilichzon is the muchlauded designer. She took as her theme Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll is said to have been inspired by the landscape of Cowley Manor – with a chequerboard motif throughout, muted colours, contemporary (and to me, fussily peculiar) sofas arranged in grids, boxy shapes and what feels like an obsession with polished lava stone. This last element, smooth, bland and cold, is used for basins and bath surrounds, in different colours. You have to love polished lava stone if you stay here. The sultry bar (with DJs at weekends) is done in midnight blue lava stone – you could be in Manhattan.

My bedroom, with a terrace overlooking the lake, felt cluttered, with an imposing, oversized wardrobe, a tall four-poster bed and two tiny rattan chairs flanking a white table too small to use. The bedside lights were shaped so the glaring bulb was exposed. There was nowhere to plug things in. Opposite the bed was a TV beneath a mirror too high to look into and reflecting only the wall. Very hip. Very Alice in Wonderland. Very pointless. The shower at the back of the bathroom was so dark, I had to use my phone torch.

I had to do the same to read the menu in the dining room, though I rather loved it there; it positively glows with warm-toned colour. Limewash has been painstakingly removed from the walls to reveal beautiful carved wood panelling. The eclectic furnishings work much better here and the seasonal menu of chef consultant Jackson Boxer (Brunswick House, Orasay) is fresh, uncomplicated, locally sourced and delicious. I had a wonderful swim and a deeply relaxing facial in the spa. It’s not all bad. This is a Marmite hotel: you might just adore it, and it might just attract the clientele for whom it has been created. I’m doubtful, though.

Double rooms cost from £250, including breakfast.

gExperimental look: expect ‘muted colours, contemporary sofas arranged in grids, boxy shapes and what feels like an obsession with polished lava stone’