Relais & Chateaux is certainly one of the best. Relais & Chateaux is really a club of members that you must be voted in to join by a member board. With 30'ish suites or rooms Biras was a near perfect size fit. To get the membership back an operator or individual must get the place open including a spectacular dining experience to french standards. A potential member must be open with a top spirit staff fully in place to complete the professionals staff inspection process and individual member inspection process before you can come up for a vote of the member board of directors. Starting from a closed property with no marketing arm that will take deep pockets, commitment, and time. Unlike many other branding/marketing consortiums Relais & Chateaux will focus on the spirit of the staff and the very high end dining experience. Dining is their niche. You can gain the Relais & Chateaux title with just a restaurant but not matter how strong the property or location is you are not one of the best dining establishments in the world you and your chef will have no chance winning the votes to get back into the Relais & Chateaux club. Relais & Chateaux properties list almost 350 Michelin stars between them. We try to never pass up the opportunity to visit any of the member properties we get close to.

For the now closed Biras property(Biras lost their Relais & Châteaux fleur-de-lis plaque in 2012) I would try to find a very high quality operator of similar small resorts to get the place well staffed, open, and revenue producing as a first step. That is the method you will see Little Dix reopen under when the time comes. Running and globally marketing these tiny high end properties is highly evolved profession that a single stand alone owner/operator may find insurmountable.