For gourmet cuisine in a spectacular setting, look no further than the luxury hotels in and around the European Alps. If you are looking for chocolate box ski villages and lakeside idyls with outstanding food, we have picked the top 10 best picks.
1. Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Starnberg
Ideally located at the gateway to Munich and a mere five-minute walk from Lake Starnberg, lies the Four-Star Superior, Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Starnberg. The service here is exceptional, and the cuisine nothing short of extraordinary.
The 126 rooms and suites at this gourmet hotel are comfortably decorated. All feature free Wi-Fi and free use of the minibar and Nespresso® coffee machine. Tucked on the 5th-floor, you’ll find a delightful spa with a Finnish sauna, steam room, and a gym, which benefits from stunning, panoramic views of Starnberg. But it is the fine dining that should attract you to this beautiful hotel, and you can select a package offering seasonal and culinary-themed specials.
Savor the culinary arts in the gourmet Michelin-starred hotel restaurant, Aubergine, managed by Maximilian Moser. The Aubergine is the hotel’s gourmet restaurant and has been awarded a Michelin star, joining the ranks of the best gourmet restaurants in Bavaria. If you choose to eat here, you can look forward to incredible culinary experiences in a relaxing atmosphere.
The chefs here continuously prepare special and out-of-the-ordinary meals. The extraordinary food creations, made with excellent ingredients, always focus on one product and bring it to its culmination with corresponding aromas, textures, and colors. Every four to six weeks, they create new seasonally inspired dishes for you with lots of attention to detail. This is a great way to discover excellent ingredients in a completely original way. Worth mentioning, the restaurant also has one toque and 14 points from Gault Millau.
2. Almhof Schneider, Lech, Austria
My top resort choice for skiing in Austria is the pretty little Alpine village Lech. Lech is the Austrian St Moritz or Megève, a place for the rich and famous to see and be seen. The Almhof Schneider is one of our top picks in Lech and one of the best ski hotels in the world. It is also located in one of the best spots in Lech. It is ski-in, ski-out, but also only a few steps from the village, where you can enjoy apres-ski in the classy but lively bars, buy designer wear from Strolz or pick up essentials from the village pharmacy or supermarket.
The style of this hotel is a modern ultra-luxe chalet. Luxury hotels simply don’t get better than this, and from the moment you step inside, every member of staff tries to make your stay as easy as possible for you, from unpacking your ski gear to bringing you whatever you want, whether it’s on the menu or not.
The food here is exquisite, and the staff are warm. I particularly love the large windows which look down over twinkling Lech from the restaurants and bar. If you come here in the low season, you will be served the hotel menu (which is AMAZING) in the fine dining restaurant area, which is a real treat. In high season, the main menu is served in the main restaurant, which is larger.
There is one of the best breakfast buffets imaginable in the morning, smoked salmon and meats with around 15 homemade accompaniments. Loads of muesli and cereal choices, including choco pops for the kids, plus salad items and cheeses. Eggs made to order are bought to the table, and there is a patisserie tray with the most delicious homemade patisseries including homemade muffins, patisseries stuffed with cinnamon and apple, all so good that you feel obliged to take one or two back to the room to scoff once your stomach accepts food again.
In the evening, the food can only be described as exquisite and is delivered in one of the classiest fine dining restaurants I have experienced around the world. Beautiful Alpine decor is complemented by generous Alpine flower arrangements (we had a lovely purple flower on our table) and six courses of deliciousness. The additional option is to order something different if the menu doesn’t take your fancy. It is one of the few menus that I have come across where the food is more beautiful and tastes even better than it sounds in the menu’s description.
Also within the hotel is a stylish pool, a smoking room with a pool table, a kids club, an impressive spa, a ski room, and as the hotel is ski in ski out, there is nothing more you could possibly want or need.
3. Four Seasons Megeve
Megève is just 1:15 by car from Geneva and is easily accessible from many European cities. A stopover at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva makes a great two-center duo.
The Four Seasons Hotel Megève is also now home to one of the most coveted gastronomic addresses in the region, the 1920’s two-star restaurant. Guests of the restaurant will enjoy the creations of Chef Julien Gatillon, who also oversees all of the hotel’s catering and all restaurants of the Edmond de Rothschild Heritage Group. The Pan Asian fusion restaurant Kaito offers a terrace and a sushi bar; the Edmond Bar is the ideal place to have a drink after skiing, inside and out. The Four Seasons Hotel Megève also has a Cigar Cellar and an impressive 10,000-bottle Wine Cellar, which can be privatized for wine tastings and dinners.
The Spa is the largest in the region, which covers 900m² with six treatment rooms, including a VIP suite for couples with a sauna and steam room, a beauty salon, and a fitness center.
Surrounded by large terraces, Four Seasons Hotel Megève also has a wonderful indoor and outdoor pool with massage and underwater music, a lounge area, a fireplace, and a bar. The Kids Club with its Kids for All Seasons activity program and the Teen Zone with its own cinema are the largest in the region and means your kids will be catered for throughout their stay.
4. Aurelio Hotel, Lech, Austria
Aurelio in Lech is an Aman style ski hotel in the Alps that also offers everything you could want from a ski hotel. In fact, it is just up the hill from the Almhof Schneider, maybe a 2-minute walk. How can the two best ski hotels in the Alps (IMHO) be right next to each other?
At the Aurelio Lech, every room faces into the valley and across the slopes, and each balcony is bathed in sunshine throughout the day. The rooms themselves are uber-modern ski chalet style, with amazing and generous marble bathrooms with yummy Hermes Paris Un Jardin Sur Le Nil toiletries. The swish pool area, which is connected to the Spa, also hosts free fruit, water, teas, and nuts, to keep you going between meals. If that’s not enough, the bowls of delicious Swiss chocolates dotted around this magnificent chalet are just too hard to resist between meals.
Hotel Aurelio has its own restaurant with inspiring and innovative cuisine. Chefs Christian Rescher & Markus Niederwanger delight with traditional and international dishes that vary on a daily basis and can be enjoyed on the sun terrace. Every room is awesome, the location is amazing in the middle of the main slope, and the food is innovative and award-winning.
5. Das Central
Das Central is the most luxury ski hotel in Sölden. The town of Sölden is not nearly as pretty as Lech or Gstaad, but once you get out of the main street, you will discover mountain streams and pretty fields which look like they are straight out of “Heidi”.
The only place to stay in Solden is the 5-Star Das Central hotel, which sits up a side street from the main drag and is a large and beautifully refurbished luxury hotel. Our tip is to request one of their refurbished rooms which face the front of the hotel. These rooms are south facing and offer sunshine, which streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the day. The decor is modern pine with swish bathrooms and superbly comfortable beds. This hotel encourages families and rewards little ones with fun touches like a furry bedtime chicken at turndown.
The hotel also has a great pool area with lots of bubble features, and best of all, there is a gondola shuttle that takes guests directly to and from the bottom of the main gondolas every 5 minutes or so, which means no waiting around.
The food here is amazing, both in the main restaurant and their specialist restaurant, the Ötztaler Stube, which offers some of the best food in the Alps. Even better, Das Central is a surprisingly affordable 5-star ski hotel (book outside the main season for excellent rates) and is definitely a Luxury Travel Diary favorite.
6. Spa Hotel Jagdhof
With snow guaranteed almost year-round, Austria’s largest glacier ski resort, Stubai, sits at an astonishing 1,750 m to 3,210 m above sea level. The very special Jagdhof hotel, is 20 minutes complimentary shuttle from the Glacier and usefully also only 25 minutes from the airport at Innsbruck. This makes the Jagdhof a brilliant place to come for a weekend of skiing.
The Spa Hotel Jagdhof is a Relais & Châteaux ski hotel with multi-award-winning cuisine, a stunning spa, and a warm indoor-outdoor pool set within beautiful gardens. The hotel sits on the edge of a pretty Tyrolean village and looks out across a breathtaking valley backed by dreamy Austrian mountains.
This family-run Relais & Chateaux property is sat on wonderful of a beautiful Austrian village and offers amazing food, a bar with a wonderful atmosphere and live music every night, a very good spa, and a superb indoor-outdoor pool which opens up to extensive lawns where you can sunbathe after a day on the Glacier. The free glacier transfers offered by the Jagdhof make getting to the Glacier surprisingly stress-free.
7. Arlberg 1800
One of the most luxury hotels in one of the highest altitudes in the Arlberg region is Arlberg 1800. This luxury hotel makes up a large portion of this village and is located near the pinnacle of a mountain between Lech, Zurs, and St Anton.
In the evenings, the atmosphere is wonderful. An enormous open fire in the center of the bar area radiates a warm glow throughout the room. It is the perfect place to enjoy an apres-ski beer or glass of wine.
Beyond the bar, the main restaurant serves an extensive multi-course dinner and a lovely breakfast. Each morning, the high altitude chefs put on an extensive spread of fruits, cereals, yogurts, cheeses, and meats and bread along with hot options including vats of delicious scrambled egg, bacon, sausages, and boiled eggs and you could also order a la carte eggs if you prefer.
If you book half board, you also eat in this excellent restaurant each evening. The breakfast buffet area transforms into an elegant salad bar where you can select any salad imaginable and then add your own sauces. Specialties included homemade sauerkraut, cucumbers in a creamy sauce, potato salad, and numerous other alternatives. There are 5 more courses each night after the salad bar, including a starter, soup, main, cheese, and desserts.
8. Forsthofgut Hotel & Spa
The Forsthofgut Hotel & Spa is a stunning ski hotel set to a dramatic canvas of lush pine forests in the fabulous alpine Leogang Mountains. Bold timber and steel architecture mixes with a more traditional look to give a contemporary but natural finish to the hotel. Interior styling is all about being local with a sense of fresh modernity, applying regional materials crafted for centuries with the likes of scented woods, loden cloth, linens, and quarried stone.
A new Spa building includes a 25-meter outdoor pool and gym, a Waterworld for the kids with water slides, and a very cool dining experience that offers fresh and local food.
The most important ingredient of their cuisine philosophy is an immense passion for authentic pleasures. You can see and taste it: taste it in their luxury market. Here you will be inspired by award-winning cuisine in an intimate framework. Savor vegan dishes and the best from regional farms.
9. Cheval Blanc, Courchevel
One of the most prestigious restaurants in Courchevel, with three Michelin stars, is the famous ‘Le 1947’ at the Cheval Blanc Hotel. It’s tiny and only serves 25 people per evening, and is run by expert chef Yannick Alléno.
They say, “Named for the most prestigious vintage of Château Cheval Blanc, the chefs of Le 1947 at Cheval Blanc set the stage for a delectable melody at the heart of the Maison.
Sybille de Margerie’s enveloping décor opens the heart of the kitchen onto the intimate dining room – including guests in the nightly performance. Sleek, contemporary, breathtaking – a canvas styled to ignite every sense.”
10. Grossarler Hof
Grossarler Hof is a sanctuary of Austrian warmth, style, and individuality, set in stunning scenery in SalzburgerLand. The ambiance of our outstanding Jagastub’n à la carte restaurant in the Grossarl Valley transports you back in time: linen table cloths, rustic wooden chairs and benches, a tiled stove, and hunting trophies. The menu showcases regionalism and local produce. The treasures of the Pongau gourmet region are innovatively prepared to produce traditional and typically Austrian dishes that delight guests’ palates. Enjoy Alpine herbs from lush valley meadows, fish from nearby mountain streams, and the game and venison for which the Valley of Alpine Meadows is rightly famous.
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