Natural inclination
French country house near Hangzhou offers a cool respite from the city, says Nick Taylor
Moganshan, in Zhejiang province, has long provided an escape from the punishing heat and noise of Shanghai. A century ago, well-heeled families would spend their summers on the cool slopes of this lush, green mountain. In the 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek was a regular visitor, as was the gangster who ran Shanghai's opium trade, "Big Ears" Du.
The mountain now sits in a national park bristling with bamboo forests about an hour from the city of Hangzhou, and is once again a refuge for those worn out by the relentless pace of urban China. Le Passage Mohkan Shan, which opened in October, is a 28-room country house that aims to recreate the former elegance of the mountain's past.
When the French owner Christophe Peres bought the land six years ago, there was nothing here except a disused tea factory. He and his wife restored the building using historic timber, local stone and antique, hand-made tiles.
They added a library and a cigar room, sunk a heated saltwater pool and planted a garden of 12,000 rose bushes. The result is laid-back and rustic but has an understated chic that's not often found on the mainland.
Food is the main focus of Le Passage. Peres has brought in Denis Jacques Lartigue to run the kitchen. Lartigue has worked at The Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong, the Conrad in Bangkok and the Hilton in Shanghai. He specialises in using ingredients grown on the property or sourced from farms in the area, but prepared using traditional French cooking methods.
On the night of our arrival, he served foie gras terrine with a bamboo shoot salad flavoured with black truffle. The bamboo is sourced locally and the foie gras is made on site. The dish was paired with a 2007 Loire Clos du Breuil - almost all of the wines served at Le Passage are sourced from small bio-dynamic French vineyards.