A Review of Mondrian Bordeaux: A 19th Century Castle For An Escape

The Front Yard of Mondrian Bordeaux (from the Mondrian website)

Location

Mondrian Bordeaux is located at 81 Cours du Medoc in Bordeaux, slightly outside of the main city area. It takes approximately 10 mins to get into the main city center by tram and 15 mins the other way towards Les Halles Bacalan and Cite du Vin.

The property is a 19th century castle in Chartrons which used to be a wine cellar that has been turned into a 5 * hotel by Philippe Starck. Fun fact, Chateau Les Carmes Haut-Brion is the sister property of Mondrian Bordeaux, so it is easy to get a nice bottle of Chateau Les Carmes Haut-Brion anywhere in the hotel. There are also excursions available to visit the winery, which we unfortunately did not have time for though we would definitely do one the next time we are in town.

Our Stay

Mondrian Bordeaux is part of the Accor group. We do not have any existing hotel loyalty status with them and utilised only the Amex FHR benefits for this stay which included:

• Guaranteed upgrade

• Early check in (12 pm)

• Late check out (4 pm)

• Daily breakfast for 2

• 100 USD property credit

Our room that was very tastefully decorated

We booked a Deluxe Room (average rate 525 SGD) and were given an upgrade to a Premier Room (average rate 595 SGD). At a property like this, there are no views or exclusives to shout about, neither did we get a bathtub for this upgrade. However, we still value this upgrade at 70 SGD. Everything in this room was well thought through. The dark out curtains, the comfortable bedding, plush room slippers and the welcome treats made our stay very homely.

Facilities

The Gorgeous Heated Pool

We spent the bulk of our last day at the pool to maximise our late check out at 4pm. The pool area was very pleasantly heated, indoors and had the sauna and steam rooms directly accessible from pool side. This made the entire experience very pleasant. Its difficult to put a value on late check outs, so as we have done in the past, we will continue to use 10 % of hotel rate for this, which works out to be 50 SGD in value.

Our Lounge Area For the Afternoon

Breakfast

Breakfast was a nice spread of cold and hot foods and it was definitely one of the better breakfast buffets we have had in Europe. The hot food, cold cuts and cheeses and breads were all of very good quality. We value this at the local rate of a breakfast, which we value at 40 SGD x 2 pax.

Hotel Credit

The hotel's dining room was absolutely gorgeous. This is the same space where Morimoto serves lunch and dinner and where the hotel serves breakfast in the morning.

Aburi Sushi

Morimoto at Mondrian Bordeaux is the first outpost in Europe. For those who grew up with the TV series, Iron Chef, Iron Chef Morimoto served fusion Japanese cuisine and this is still the theme in his restaurants. It is a rather interesting concept to have a Japanese restaurant as Mondrian's main restaurant but during our dinner, we noticed that it seemed to be quite popular amongst locals. Personally, it is the second time I have tried Morimoto, and I must say, I dont think there is too much to shout about. In this instance, our sushi rice was a debarcle and that is the Asian in me speaking. But in the context of introducing a variety of cuisines into alot of European countries that have deep culinary roots, I think it is great concept.

We used out hotel credit for our dinner, which worked out to be approximately 135 SGD.

In total, the AMEX FHR stay gave us a total benefit of approximately 335 SGD.

Would We Recommend?

A definite yes for this property! Whilst it is not the closest property to the city and much of town, it was a very pretty and warm property where we could focus on getting a good rest.