The château of the Condé princes and a picture collection second only to the Louvre's, Le Nôtre's gardens, the Grandes Écuries and a forest made for horses – the tables, the hotels and the quartiers, in one guide.
In Chantilly now
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Weather
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MICHELIN
1 ✱ tables · 1 Key hotel
Photo: Sylvain Tanguy/Adobe Stock
In this guide
Every table and hotel the MICHELIN inspectors have chosen in Chantilly – 1 starred, 1 more restaurants and 1 hotel – on one map, with our own stories as we write them.
'Citrouilles et carabistouilles': families pool their wits to crack the puzzles and open a treasure chest (about 1 h 15, from 6, €6 per person). Book ahead – the Pavillon opens Tuesday–Friday, 14:00–18:00.
In before the last entry at 16:00: the 16:00 performance of 'Les Sœurs Gribouille', the rabbit race at 16:30, the haunted 'Cherche et Trouve' and a goûter at the Guinguette. Book online – numbers are limited.
On the central square: mains from €17, a €27 two-course menu and a €10 children's menu, with cocktails with or without alcohol; open until midnight on Fridays.
Doors open at 10:00; be in the cour d'Honneur for the 10:30 visit-workshop (6–12, €9 on top of the €21 or €17.50 day ticket). Then the Musée Condé – the tourist office calls it the second-largest collection of old paintings in France after the Louvre.
The park's rustic hamlet – which inspired Marie-Antoinette's at the Petit Trianon – hides a restaurant famous for its homemade crème Chantilly. Open 12:00–18:00 (closed Tuesdays) until 11 November; à la carte from €15.60.
Included in the day ticket: the 28-metre dome, the 30 show horses and the daily equestrian animation – ask for the time when you arrive. Everything closes at 18:00.
The bistro of the Auberge du Jeu de Paume: seasonal French classics, à la carte from €25 or the €75 bistro menu (Saturday dinner 19:00–21:30) – then a nightcap by the fire in the Lounge Bar.
'Meurtre au musée de Senlis': solve the crime with the victim's notebook in the Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie (10:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00) – free under 25, and the listing gives free entry on the first Sunday of the month. Pick up the cathedral explorers' booklet across the square.
Walk the chain of four ponds to the Château de la Reine Blanche and back – the easy family stretch of the longer forest loop. Free parking along the route des étangs.
✱ MICHELIN star · Bib Gourmand: good cooking at a fair price · ◆ selected in the Guide · € to €€€€: the Guide's own price bands, from «on a budget» to «spare no expense».
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Sunset and drinks
Where to drink
A library-like hotel lounge, a herbalist's cocktail bar and a craft brewery in Senlis.
The five-star Relais & Châteaux hotel's lounge feels like a private library: leather sofas, velvet armchairs, wooden bookcases and a fire. Classic and house cocktails, wines and champagnes; spritzes and Italian wines on Thursday 'Dolce Vita' nights, caviar and champagne on Fridays.
Signature cocktails built on syrups and hydrolats the bartenders make themselves, a herbalist's theme and a made-to-measure wall of demijohns – 'dames-jeannes', a wink at the estate's name. Purists get their Dry Martini. Cocktails from €16, alcohol-free from €12.
A terrace that commands the park of the Château de la Tour, a billiard table and board games inside, a long wine list and cocktails – and, on the menu of homemade plates, the chef's own Chantilly cream.
Open straight through until 1am, with a big covered terrace for every season – the tourist office's pick for an easy evening with friends, karaoke nights included. On Saturday 31 October: a Halloween party with a DJ from 20:00 (registration required).
Restaurant and cocktail terrace · Place Omer VallonLa Villa
On the town's central square: a big terrace strung with lights, a cosy room, cocktails with or without alcohol, sharing boards – and regular evenings with live music.
Organic craft beers brewed with a little honey, bought at a fair price from French beekeepers – a nod to medieval brewing in the town where the Capetian dynasty began. For Halloween: a limited-edition pumpkin beer, the L'Épicur'Oise food truck, sweets, a fortune-teller and a costume contest.
Sources: the Chantilly-Senlis tourist office and the bars' own listings, read 27 October 2026.
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Where to stay
The hotels worth the trip
The MICHELIN Guide's Keys first – its mark for hotels with character, service and a sense of place – then the rest of its selection and the ones we would book ourselves.
The tourist office's own circuit takes in the town's three great sights – racecourse, château and Grandes Écuries – along the turf and the forest edge, straight off the train from Paris.
Past the Chantilly racecourse, the Grandes Écuries, the Château de Chantilly
All year. The forest gallops are reserved for racehorses in training until 13:00 (11:30 on Sundays and holidays) – keep to the footpaths.
Yes – short and graded easy by the tourist office.
Start: Place de la Gare, Chantilly – booklet free from the tourist office or to download
Out along the GR 11 from the Canal Saint-Jean, over the Grand Canal and into the forest of Chantilly by its old hunting crossroads – a proper day's leg-stretch that starts at the château gates.
Past the Canal Saint-Jean, the Grand Canal, the Carrefour de la Coharde
All year; forest tracks can be muddy after rain.
Long but easy going; for children used to a day's walking.
Start: End of avenue du Bouteiller, by the Canal Saint-Jean (parking along the canal)
The most romantic corner of the forest: four ponds in a chain along the Thève, the little Château de la Reine Blanche at the water's edge and a landscape that inspired Chateaubriand. Crêpes at L'Étang d'Art on the way back (open until 11 November).
Past the Château de la Reine Blanche, the Étang de la Loge, the Étang Neuf and the Étang Chaperon, Mongrésin
All year.
Families can simply walk round the four ponds, as the tourist office suggests; the full loop is for older children.
Start: Car park at the Château de la Reine Blanche, Coye-la-Forêt (more parking along the Route forestière des Étangs de Commelles)
In 1540 the Constable Anne de Montmorency had his woods ringed with stones carved with his arms and the date. Straightened in 2023 and now listed historic monuments, they turn a short forest walk above Senlis into a heraldry hunt.
Past the entrance to an old sand quarry, six armorial boundary stones of 1540 and one engraved stone, the Poteau du Mont Alta
All year.
Yes – short, and a treasure hunt for stones carved with the arms of the king and the Constable.
Start: Forest car park on the left as you enter Aumont-en-Halatte from the D330
Preserved locks of hair, unsettling gazes, amulets and death masks: the strangest curiosities in the château's collections, told on a slightly spooky tour that ends in a workshop where everyone makes their own Halloween mask.
Daily except Tuesdays at 10:30, 17 October–1 November 2026; 1 h 30.
Built between 1719 and 1735 by Jean Aubert for up to 240 horses and 500 hounds, two 70-metre naves meet under a 28-metre dome. Thirty show horses still live here, there is an equestrian animation every day, and the museum holds some 200 objects and artworks on the bond between people and horses.
Until 1 November: daily except Tuesdays 10:00–18:00.
115 hectares of gardens – Le Nôtre's French parterre, English and Anglo-Chinese gardens, woods – with a playground, a maze, the wallaby enclosure and crème Chantilly at the Hameau.
From 26 October: 10:00–18:00, closed Tuesdays (hours vary over Christmas).
Park · Ages All ages – a garden and animal park the tourist office calls a paradise for families.Potager des Princes – Halloween
Twenty-five themed gardens, a Japanese kitchen garden with a red bridge and a bamboo maze, peacocks, pheasants, pygmy goats and sheep. For Halloween there is a haunted 'Cherche et Trouve' trail with sweets at the end, the witch comedy 'Les Sœurs Gribouille' (15:00 or 16:00) and the famous rabbit race (15:30 or 16:30).
17–31 October: daily 10:00–12:00 and 14:00–18:00 (last entry 16:00).
Museum · Ages Treasure hunt from 6; family workshops and 'éveil aux sciences' sessions for younger children too.Pavillon de Manse – Halloween
The Condé princes' mill pumped water to Le Nôtre's fountains: children set a 17th-century wooden wheel turning, then hear the 19th-century machines and see the Duc d'Aumale's mechanised laundry. For Halloween there is a pumpkin treasure hunt, a witch who has forgotten her own name and a 'Lab'horrible' where pumpkins are made to throw up.
An hour and a half on a sturdy Henson horse from the Pavillon de Manse, along the canals, past the racecourse and the Grandes Écuries and into the park of the château itself – a ride the tourist office says suits complete beginners.
All year, daily 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–17:00; departures twice a day by booking.
Chantilly gave its name to a black bobbin lace made here in the 18th and 19th centuries: gowns, fans, shawls and parasols, and demonstrations of the technique with professional and amateur lacemakers – a small, quiet museum for a rainy afternoon.
Friday–Sunday 14:00–18:00 until 27 December; closed Monday–Thursday.
Rebuses, riddles and things to spot as you work your way round the old centre of Senlis – on paper or on a phone, and a painless way to get children through a medieval town.
In the old bishop's palace: ex-votos and a Gallo-Roman house in the vaulted cellars, Gothic sculpture, and paintings by Thomas Couture upstairs. On 31 October and 1 November it turns into a crime scene – 'Meurtre au musée de Senlis', an investigation led with the victim's notebook – with drop-in 'Petites visites macabres' and costumes encouraged.
Wednesday–Sunday 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00; closed Monday and Tuesday.
Leisure park · Ages All ages; free under 90 cm, child rate from 90 cm to 11.La Mer de Sable
A park built on a real sand sea: 25 rides across three worlds, from the Rivière Sauvage and the Train des Sables to Disco Loco, plus its newest, Wild Buffalo – billed as a big thrill to share as a family.
Daily 10:30–18:00 until 1 November, the last day of the season.
Ruins of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1137 by Louis VI, a royal chapel whose Renaissance frescoes by Primaticcio are revealed by a 20-minute light-and-sound show – and until 1 November a game booklet to free Philochale, a monk cursed by a scarecrow that came to life (about an hour, at your own pace).
Daily 10:00–17:00 until 1 November (the Halloween listing says 10:00–18:00).
Leisure park · Ages All ages; under-3s free. Family zones for the youngest, haunted houses for the brave.Parc Astérix – Peur sur le Parc
Seven themed worlds and 50 rides and shows, dressed for Halloween until 8 November: mist and monsters in the alleys, a new fear zone in the Egyptian souk, a magic and grand-illusion show at the Arènes and the 'Parcours des Petits Chaudrons', a sweet-toothed quest for children.
A picturesque English-style garden of 62 hectares named after the philosopher, who spent the last weeks of his life at Ermenonville and was buried on the Île des Peupliers – woods, meadows, river and lake, classed as a protected natural area in 2019.
Sources: the Chantilly-Senlis tourist office (chantilly-senlis-tourisme.com) and the places' own listings there, read 27 October 2026. Drive times from the town centre without traffic. Check seasons and ages with the place before you go.
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The atlas
Chantilly at a glance
The MICHELIN tables, the hotels and the sights, on one map.
Photo: Didier Salou/Adobe Stock
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The directory
Every place in Chantilly
Every restaurant, hotel and sight the MICHELIN Guide lists within 4 km – 3 places, each with its own page. The six nearest the centre of each kind are here; the rest are in the directory, A to Z.
One MICHELIN KeyAuberge du Jeu de Paume92 rooms · ChantillyRead the story 
