The coolest ski hotels in Europe
Seasoned skiers will be able to attest it's not just about where you ski, but where you stay after a day out on the pistes. The best ski resorts in Europe are also home to some of the best hotels in the region, with smart spas, spectacular Alpine views and enviable ski-in/ski-out access, completely bypassing the tiresome task of lugging your gear through town. While the grand dames of the ski scene are well known, there's a whole new generation of hotels bringing fresh energy and, in some instances, affordable prices to the slopes. Here we round up the most exciting lodges to know about in Europe. For more options, see our pick of the best Airbnbs for skiing in Europe.
Romain RicardFaern Arosa Altein, Switzerland
Faern’s first outpost opened in Arosa in December 2022, bringing its modern, design-focused angle to an otherwise traditional area. Interiors combine aspects of the original building - wood panelling, glossy marble pillars and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the Library bar - with sculptural furniture, Terrazzo-effect floor tiles and clever space-saving, angular wardrobes in the bedrooms. Walls are peppered with retro-inspired photographic artwork that evokes nostalgia for ski trips gone by; every image is set in the surrounding slopes to bring elements of the local piste inside.
When it comes to sustainability, visible evidential effort is being made. Slippers are wrapped in biodegradable packaging, the bathroom is void of mini plastic toiletries, and the straw in every cocktail is metal. The approach complements the elemental nature of mountain life and the activities available to (adult) guests. Breathwork and ice-water immersion sessions start at 7am on the grounds every morning and yoga classes can be booked on request.
The rooftop restaurant is open to external visitors and offers expansive 360-degree views of the mountains as well as an outdoor terrace bedecked with cosy blankets. Cocktails are creative and reflective of the hotel concept: one that brings a touch of modern hotel luxury to the slopes and makes it affordable, approachable and altogether fun. Sarah Leigh Bannerman
@ThibaultMicoewsLe Refuge de Solaise, Val-d'Isère, France
A former cable-car station in Val d’Isère and now a fun-loving ski hotel with sweeping views, Le Refuge de Solaise is one of France’s highest places to bed down. Ski-in/ski-out access guarantees that you’re the first to make tracks on fresh snow each morning. The 16 bedrooms all have soaring mountain vistas, and there are four apartments that feel like private chalets, plus a bunk room for 14, with eight single beds and three doubles. Sushi and Thai noodles sit on the menu alongside pumpkin soup and tartiflette.
The restaurants have more of those epic views across the peaks, and there’s an 82-foot-long indoor pool and sunken hot tubs in the wellness centre, as well as a kids’ playroom. But, really, you’re just here for the untracked pistes.
Huus Gstaad, Switzerland
From the balconies here you can spot private jets beetling down to the airstrip below, but they’re missing a trick: to embrace the contours and roll with the terrain, you really need to arrive by train, cranking upwards in a Grand Budapest Hotel-style carriage from Montreux. This hotel landed with a soft whumpf recently above Gstaad’s neighbouring village, Saanen, with the sort of chalet-style timbers that have been around since the Matterhorn was a wee lad. Inside’s a different story, though: the open-plan space resplendent with peacock purples and greens, wine-gum lights, and tartans set against slate and dark woods.
There’s a gaggle of sofas and armchairs to sprawl in, gin-heavy cocktail menu to hand, while the weekend DJ warms up; the restaurant twirls together creative spins on pumpkin, venison, chestnuts and mushrooms, and in winter, the fondue hut makes a toasty break-out space. It’s all as comfortable as a fur-lined ski boot, and you could gaze out at the cloud-smudged mountain views – from sauna, pool, bedroom or bar terrace – until the cows abseil home. But resident action-man Thomas Rüegger has other ideas: most activities are complementary and the range is fantastically generous, from snowshoe treks to snowboarding and ski lessons for the kids. You can even test the latest freeride or touring kit – perhaps by tackling the steep, icy pistes of the Wasserngrat’s Tiger Run. Plus the keys of three Range Rovers are yours for the taking, for pootles down to Gstaad. For the first-time Alpinist or seasoned old hand, this is one heck of a mountain lair. By Rick Jordan
Experimental Chalet, Verbier, Switzerland
Parisian cocktail and hotel champions Experimental are behind this retro hotel. Peach, pistachio and olive fabrics give the spaces – 39 rooms, a restaurant, the group’s first-ever spa and a cocktail bar – a polished mid-century feel. The restaurant is overseen by Gregory Marchand, and there’s a basement nightclub, The Farm, which has long been one of the most famous clubs in the Alps.
An ideal ski resort for beginners, the team can arrange ski or snowboard lessons as well as sledge runs. snowshoe hikes or even tandem skydives – or you’re just minutes from the ski lifts, which take you into the apex of Les 4 Vallées.
Miramonti Boutique hotel, Merano, Italy
An Alpine spa retreat with jaw-dropping valley views, this mountain hideaway is one of the best-looking hotels in Italy. Set in the Dolomites, overlooking Merano, it’s more clean-cut Scandi than trad chalet. The whole place pivots around the views – the glass-walled Panorama restaurant lives up to its name, bedrooms have soaring windows and the outdoor pool tips over the mountainside. It is booked out year round, but in winter eager snow bunnies come for skiing at nearby Merano 2000, followed by a stint in the Finnish sauna and onsen or a spell in the spa.
Rooms are warm and soft, using lots of pine, oak and moody Nordic colours. There are three restaurants – Klassik for a foraged breakfast, Panorama for smart twists on Austrian and Italian classics, and wood-panelled Stube for hefty mountain staples. For more, see our full review of Miramonti Boutique Hotel.
Riders Hotel, Laax, Switzerland
Anyone who thinks skiing in Switzerland is all rösti, cuckoo clocks and ruddy-faced royals has clearly not been to Laax. The world centre of freestyle skiing and boarding is a rather more alternative prospect, and after a total revamp in 2020, 63-room Riders Hotel is aimed squarely at the adrenalin-thirsty crowd. Rooms are compact but cool, with walk-in rain showers, black metalwork and plywood beds alongside bare lightbulbs and brushed-concrete floors. Only one of them has a bath (The Studio), but all have floor-to-ceiling windows, with many looking out over the frozen lake from which the carbon-neutral hotel derives its heat.
A bar on the ground floor hosts free gigs on Friday nights, and a 700-capacity club in the basement heaves at weekends – but rest assured, you can’t hear it upstairs. Breakfast is a fuelling but classic spread of cheeses, hams, breads and müsli; in the evenings things at the restaurant get more interesting with a veggie-only menu (kidney-bean burgers with jalapeño mayo and sweet-potato fries are standouts). Next door you’ll find the Freestyle Academy, featuring skate ramps, trampolines and dry-slope jumps into an airbag, ideal for perfecting your rodeo flips before strolling five minutes up the road to the Crap Sogn Gion cable car. From there you’ll have access to the Laax and Flims’ varied intermediate terrain and four snow parks – 70 per cent of it is above 6,500ft, meaning seasons are long and the snow is reliable. By Patrick Welch
Valsana, Arosa, Switzerland
Those who have been to Arosa, the plush but ski-rather-than-be-seen destination at the upper end of the Schanfigg Valley, will have travelled there because of the super-smart Tschuggen Grand Hotel, with its private ski lift and jutting glass spa. Now the hotel’s new sibling is bringing fresh energy to the local scene. The Alps have been screaming for less stuffy, more affordable hotels for years and bold, playful Valsana is part of this new wave. No dining room drowning in white tablecloths or rooms laden down with Heidi twee here. Instead, Twist restaurant offers a healthy menu: perhaps a pink salad bowl for lunch (radicchio, red cabbage, pomegranate, poached egg and strawberry), or a vegan, gluten-free coconut chocolate mousse after supper.
The 40 rooms swap reindeer motifs for Aztec-pattern blankets, antlers for botanical prints and sheepskins for the industrial edge of aviator egg chairs; hammocks on the balconies are a nice touch too. Beyond the refreshing aesthetics, the place has bonafide eco-credentials: it is the first hotel in Switzerland to have an ice battery (meaning no oil or gas is used) and the mattresses are made from coconut fibres. The nearest cable car is just a couple of minutes away, and thanks to the linking of the Arosa Lenzerheide ski areas a few years back, it whips you up to more than 140 miles of slopes. There’s also snowshoeing and ice golf on the lake and, back at the hotel, yoga classes, weekly film nights and a small spa with treatment rooms named after Swiss ski champions. It’s no wonder a younger crowd is starting to trickle up the valley. By Celia Thursfield
Maison Cimes, Les Orres, France
After 20 years in Paris, Sandrine (a lawyer) and Xavier Lecharny (who worked in advertising before training as a chef) arrived in the Hautes Alpes in 2007 to create their first B&B, La Maison du Guil, dishing up an evening tasting menu in the Queyras Valley. In 2012, they moved to Nantes, where they started creatively healthy restaurant César & Rosalie. But they were looking for a reason to head back to the mountains. This ancient hikers’ gîte-turned-Scandi-tinged guesthouse, which they opened last summer, is it. Here the table d’hôte restaurant they run five nights a week is as much of a draw as the five bedrooms (crisp white and shades of grey and inky blue, softened with sheepskin-topped Tolix chairs or a piece of warm mid-century furniture) and the something-for-everyone ski area of Les Orres, which slaloms through an enormous larch forest (a five-minute drive away, or 10 minutes by free bus).
The menu is resolutely local, with a light and veg-centric touch not usually seen in the mountains, paired with an all-organic wine list. Xavier organises cooking classes some Saturday afternoons – the next, at the end of January, will feature four courses including an endive, mushroom and liquorice-leaf salad and pho made with duck and winter vegetables. Beyond the restaurant’s big picture windows the slopes await: as well as the wide downhill runs, there’s plenty of cross-country routes and snowshoeing; plus, the couple are keen hikers and will map out their favourite paths. This is a blast of fresh air at these altitudes. By Elizabeth Wharton
Le Cerf, Amoureux, Cordon-Combloux, France
From the outside, this is an ultra-traditional Alpine chalet, set on the ‘balcony of Mont Blanc’ between the villages of Cordon and Combloux, and 10 minutes from famously pretty Megève. But it was revamped and reopened last winter by Parisian Lisa Konckier-Abrat (of Hôtel Benkiraï in St Tropez and Hôtel de Nell in Paris). She stripped out the red-and-white-gingham clichés; instead there’s now an air of wabi-sabi to the interiors, a raw soothing elegance: traditional pine walls and ceilings have been sanded to a pale patina, natural-coloured linens cover sofas and beds, and storytelling touches, such as a weathered sled repurposed as a coffee table or well-loved old Savoyard dressers and wardrobes, root it firmly in place.
With just 11 bedrooms, some with knockout views of Mont Blanc from their balconies, it has a distinct make-yourself-at-home vibe (fellow house guests are a chic bunch of French, Swiss and Italian couples), amplified by the just-made snacks around the fire (biscuit de Savoie, cake, brioche) and an honesty bar with an excellent whisky selection for nightcaps. Everything is small but perfectly formed and considered: a concise menu in the restaurant nails the classics – fondue, raclette, tartiflette – while the petite spa has a short offering of massages and yoga. This is a clever choice for dipping in and out of the chi-chi Megève scene. By Elizabeth Wharton
Bruno MalegueFour Seasons Hôtel Megève, France
This grand Four Seasons hotel opened in top French ski resort Megève in its current costume at the tail-end of 2019 – just before the pandemic shortened one ski season in Europe and cancelled another entirely. In 2021, it reopened, with all the warmth of old-school chalets and the glitz to rival neighbouring St Moritz. Rooms have fires to light after a day on the slopes and quirky art, while there’s a 900sqm spa in the basement and an indoor-outdoor pool.
There's ski-in/ski-out access where guests can directly depart from the hotel and there are fleets of Four Seasons vehicles to ferry you around, too. The pistes are gentle, and known for being some of France’s sunniest. And the town is beautiful – it’s cobbled and car-free, and horse-drawn carriages are commonplace.