I had a pretty quiet week-end after all – definitely too stressful season at work, so I preferred to lay on my couch watching silly TV programs – I am addicted to chavs reality, like Geordie Shore, apologies – and eating Indian take-away.

On Sunday night, after a sunny afternoon spent at the new Rotonde, we joined some friends for an informal dinner at Chateau de Bourglinster Brasserie. The castle complex is located about 20 minutes driving from Luxembourg city in the countryside and includes a Michelin-starred gastronomic restaurant and a small brasserie. This one has a lovely terrace overlooking the valley, but due to the number of guests and the wonderful day, it was already fully booked, and we dined inside.

The Brasserie offers a combinations of menu – starter, main and dessert or two starters main and dessert – plus eventually wine match for reasonable prices, starting from 49 Euro. The card is not very wide – about four dishes each section, including one veg option and one daily suggestion. Unfortunately some of the dishes were not available anymore when we arrived.

I opted for tuna fish as starter, guinea fowl as main and cheesecake as dessert. Hubby had tuna dish as started, oven-baked beef as main and pistachio biscuit as dessert.

The wine card is indeed extensive, with some good numbers – we went for a Saint-Aubin all dinner long.

Enjoy some pictures of our night and find after them my usual general impressions and comments.

Things I loved about this restaurant:

– Fairy-tales atmosphere: it is incredible that driving just for 20 minutes, you will be wrapped up in surroundings from another century. Definitely recommended for a romantic evening or for a night trip with someone visiting.

– Structured dishes, more on the gastronomic side than on the real brasserie one. I was expecting to have some typical charcuterie, beef tartare and bouche a la reine, like in most up-class brasserie in the city. The selection of ingredients and the dishes themselves were surprising and pleasant. Finally something different!

– The sorbet served as welcome of the chef – together with the snails – and the guinea fowl were definitely the best dishes of the night for me. The guinea was pure butter and the combination with the mushroom and the various sauces was just delicious.

– Service was fairly impressive. Notwithstanding the fact we ordered all different dishes on a table of 10 people, the plats were arriving directly to the person without any delay or questions from the waiters (same situation, different place: here we have a beef filet – screaming – who did take the beef filet? – louder – we have one dish less, who is missing? and similar noisy sounds more appropriate for a fish market than a restaurant) . Service was also always on time to fill up the wine glasses and the boys appreciated the fact the chef seated down with them for a chat after the dinner.

Things I liked a bit less:

– Interior settings are quite featureless. Personally speaking, I would not do the trip and spend some serious money for dining inside in the brasserie.

– I am fine having a short menu card, since my previous posts you should have already understood it is something I prefer. But then if out of 13 dishes you miss already 5, the choice starts to be hard. I had already opted for lamb as main and chocolate dessert when the waiter said they were over. Sad.

– I had half of hubby’s beef and some of his dessert and I was not really impressed. The beef was sickly sweet and some sauces were definitely out-of-place – too acid. Happy I went for the guinea fowl!

In conclusion, I really appreciated this evening at the Chateau, but talking with hubby and another friend while driving back to town, I confessed that I would have come back only to dine at the main restaurant of the castle. 75 euro and 20 minutes driving for me, lazy spoiled Corie, are not worth a dinner with friends in such settings. I really see it as a place for a tete-a-tete and in this case, “go big or go home”.