Home Hill Inn, New Hampshire
French hosts: nourishment for the soul at a magnifique New Hampshire Inn.

From the March 24, 2003 Issue of New York

For some, nirvana is attainable only through rigor and self-abnegation. For others, all it takes is a fine raw-milk cheese. At the Home Hill French Inn & Restaurant, a remote retreat in Plainfield, New Hampshire, you can find eternal bliss through gourmet food. The serene, French-country-style inn sits on 25 lush acres along the Connecticut River. Provence native Stephane du Roure runs the restored nineteenth-century mansion with his wife, Victoria, a Ritz-Escoffier-trained chef who oversees the kitchen. French and American antiques and traditional toiles fill the twelve guest rooms (no TVs or fax machines). In the morning, you’ll wake to treats such as fresh-baked croissants, scones, and bacon-and-leek quiches. For lunch, mangez on a picnic of prosciutto-and-cornichon baguettes, French and local cheeses—Brie, Cheddar—and just about any kind of wine. In the afternoon, restoke your appetite on the tennis court or hiking trails or in the swimming pool, because dinner is the pièce de résistance. Chef du Roure whips up such Provençal-inspired dishes as cod brandade with lobster and black truffles, and salt-encrusted Mediterranean sea bream.

-- Betsy Goldberg