Courchevel, France

Written By Phebe Huth

More Michelin stars than you can shake a ski pole at. 

Written by Rosalyn Wikeley

The swishiest ski resort in the Trois Vallees, Courchevel is about as louche as high altitude antics can get. Perfectly groomed pistes wiggle through snow-dusted pine-woods, past gourmet mountain restaurants to meet a town centre filled with designer boutiques and Bentleys. But it wasn’t always the case, before the oligarchs arrived, this was a popular resort with the Brits and French for its superb, multilevel skiing, which, with eye-watering investment in snow machines and piste maintenance, just keeps getting better. Having fully embraced Courchevel’s piste-side parade of tiered seafood platters, Champagne coupés and general Michelin-starred, moneyed madcappery, skiers can snow plough into their chalet backdoors, or the plush ski lounges of the resort’s curiously varied hotels for a deep tissue take on après.

 

Credit: Kristina Romanova

EXPERT TIPS

Kristina Romanova

Fashion model and CEO of Aman Essentials, Kristina Romanova spends long stints in the Alps with her family, recharging at Aman Le Mélézin, hitting the slopes and staying abreast of the resort’s gourmet scene.

IN FLIGHT ESSENTIALS: Aman pulse point remedy to calm anxiety as I’m a nervous flyer, Aman x 111Skin mask to have my skin hydrated and ready to shine right off the flight, lip balm, sketch book as I like to put my ideas on paper for the future Aman Essentials collections and a good literature!

PACKING TIPS: I like to organise my looks in advance, so I don’t overpack. And it saves time later with outfits already planned!

THE FILM TO WATCH/BOOK TO READ BEFORE DEPARTURE: : House of Gucci, the Après-Ski part will inspire your outfits for the mountains, so chic

FAVORITE HOTEL:Aman Le Mélézin


MEMORABLE MEALS: The cheese fondue and herring with potatoes. I’m always craving heavy comforting meals in the mountains, and it reminds me of my childhood winter menu.

THE DRINK TO ORDER: Verveine tea

BAR OF CHOICE: I don’t really go to bars, but rather prefer a good glass of wine over a cocktail. My favourite choice for dinner in Courchevel would be La Saulire. Incredible French food and one of the best wine lists in town.

FAVORITE SHOP: The French pharmacy in le Croisette! I love to stock up on European remedies that you can’t find in pharmacies elsewhere in the world.

WELLNESS TREATMENT TO TRY: The Aman Signature 90 minutes facial. It resurfaces and deeply hydrates your skin which is much needed in high altitude. It’s done with the Essential skin range that is designed and manufactured in Japan and has two key ingredients – Rice bran and Indigo extracts.  I always feel like I have a new lifted glowy babyface after.

 

The form is to ski until 1.30pm, then bed in for gourmet tartiflette and rosé on a sun-drenched terrace.

 

STAY

Chalet-meet-daschas, Habsburg-esque hunting lodges, Japanese minimalism within a menacing fortress exterior. Take your pick.

Featured
Portetta
Portetta

Address: Courchevel moriond, 252 Rue du Marquis, 73120 Courchevel, France
Phone: +33 4 79 08 01 47
Website: portetta.com/

Low key and Courchevel rarely share the same sentence. But slide down mountain to 1650 where the Savoyard spirit endures, and you’ll find Portetta. It’s cosy without feeling overly twee, rustic while shining its shoes. Rooms are pared down but sumptuous in fabric and materials choices, a hallmark of its owners, the Hutsons (behind Lime Wood and the ever-growing group of Pigs). Not only is it ski-in/ski-out, but the backdoor opens to miles of unspoilt backcountry, where the pros can wiggle through Alpine woods, looking out for wildlife and carving tracks into fresh snow. Those sticking to the pistes are right on the Belvedere, with easy access to the lifts and Les Trois Vallées miles of scenic runs. They can snowplough home to backgammon boards and hot toddies in fire-lit rooms or, outside, the Fire & Ice Bar whose stone-baked pizzas are as legendary as their ‘Pistes Rouges’ cocktails. 

Hotel Le K2 Palace
Hotel Le K2 Palace

Address: 238 Rue des Clarines, 73120 Courchevel, France
Phone: +33 4 79 40 08 80
Website: https://www.lek2palace.com

Every inch the louche-lodge, high design, high expense Courchevel, Le K2 is an Alpine refuge for the 0.1 percenters and their Moncler-clad offspring. It’s all tonal and textured, warming the Tibetan-inspired architecture and exterior, and traces the traditional mountain hamlet formation, with mesmerising valley views from all snow-laden chalets. As well as scuffing the Pralong piste, the hotel smugly deploys its own chairlift, shooting guests and their instructors up into Les Trois Vallées’ snowy playground. They’re soon back, to wallow in the private pools, stew in the hot tubs, and tuck into Sébastien Vauxion’s sweet and savoury alchemy at le Sakara or L’Altiplano’s innovative Peruvian plates.

Les Airelles Courchevel
Les Airelles Courchevel

Address: Rue du Jardin Alpin, 73120 Courchevel, France
Phone: 0033 47900 3838
Website: airelles.com

Carved into a cliff, this classic hotel counts an assortment of uniquely designed rooms under its roof – The Virginia Suite, Suite 59, occupies an entire floor. The hotel’s freshwater swimming pool and direct access private beach will help you tune into the dolce far niente mindset.

Unapologetically traditional, in a glamorous, uncrusty sense, Les Airelles Courchevel is perched on the edge of the Jardin Alpin slopes like a grand, Habsburg hunting lodge. But for all its chandelier, trophy mural, family crest theatrics, this heritage hotel is in fact a 1990s creation, with superb techy touches and subterranean spa that engulfs guests for long afternoons. Every corner of its interior has a Brother’s Grimm, Alpine palace quality to it, whether it’s the profusion of carved wood, frescos and elaborate heritage headboards, or the large open fireplaces and ancestral portraits. Breakfast here is as fantastical as they come – fit for an Empress. 

Cheval Blanc Courchevel
Cheval Blanc Courchevel

Address: Rue du Jardin Alpin, 73120 Courchevel, France
Phone:  0033 47900 5050
Website: chevalblanc.com

Arty, chic and seriously louche, Cheval Blanc Courchevel’s muralled, mustard-hued exterior belies the angular spaces and contemporary artworks inside (expect Bruno Peinado’s mirrored horse piercing the driveway, and Andreas Gursky’s prints of the ant-like skiers. Alpine cosiness and savoyard prints and palettes are sent through a contemporary prism in the lounges and rooms, where lavish textiles and materials are layered to excess. The elemental-themed spa sits at piste level, where après oscillate between the sauna, steam room and hot tub, plonked a metre or so from the piste. And while its Jardin Alpin setting is a boon for the Fendi-clad skiers, the real drawer of this hotel is its Michelin-starred, futuristic 1947 restaurant and lobster lunches with jazz on its sunny terrace.

Aman Le Mélézin
Aman Le Mélézin

Address: 310 Rue de Bellecôte, 73120 Courchevel, France
Phone: 0033479080133
Website: aman.com 

Aman has brought its Far-Eastern minimalism and wellbeing philosophies to the Alps, with yoga classes, blonde woods and a double-level spa residing in a fortress-like structure high in 1850. Le Mélézin’s Alpine reference are subtle – with warm velvets and silvery hide – and gentle lighting sets a warm, slightly monastic bass note. As expected, the spa is the real show stopper with a pillared pool and bespoke programmes featuring crystals, hot oils and impressive body MOTs. The sumptuous minimalism in the rooms and brooding communal space spills onto Nama’s Japanese menus, where sashimi and Otoro tuna are a welcome hiatus from endless rounds of mountain raclette.  

 

SAVOR

With a Michelin star tally that far surpasses any other ski resort (in the world), Courchevel lures in serious foodies, whose trips revolve more around supper than snow forecasts. Whether tucking under futuristic tables for wildly innovative cuisine designed to retune your tastebuds, or hunkering down, piste-side, for elevated takes on comforting savoyard classics, it’s worth sampling as many of these gourmet institutions as you can..

  • Le 1947 Cheval Blanc
    Address: Le 1947 à Cheval Blanc Le, Rue du Jardin Alpin, 73120 Courchevel, France
    Phone: +33 4 79 00 50 50

    At the centre of Courchevel’s Michelin-starred maze, occupying a futuristic chunk of Jardin Alpin’s Cheval Blanc Courchevel, is Le 1947. It’s the sort of spot you’d jet to if you’d just sold a business, or book for a truly special, once-in-a-lifetime dinner à deux. Expect Yannick Alénno’s culinary wizardry, overseen by Gérard Barbin who thrills diners with innovative mouthfuls of, say,  scrambled sea scallops, brioche sprinkled with caviar, or black truffle and buttermilk.

  • chabichou-courchevel.com
    Address: 90 Rue des Chenus, 73120 Courchevel, France
    Phone: +33 4 79 08 00 55

    White-washed and the epitome of rustic chic, Le Chabichou is a Michelin-starred 1850 favourite owned by the Rochedy family, whose personal touch has salvaged it from the banal minimalism most haute gourmet haunts now adhere to. Eminent chef Stéphane Buron deftly works superlative ingredients into pieces of culinary art – expect imaginative courses of scallops with corn flower ‘like ice cream polenta’ or Arctic char back with fine quinelles snails and capucine flower sauce.

  • cavedescreux-courchevel.com
    Address: Courchevel, 73120 Courchevel, France
    Phone: +33 4 79 07 76 14

    Perched some  2,112 metres above sea level, Cave des Creux packs snow-globe views from its terrace, where firepits and rug-strewn seating invites plenty of post-prandial lingering. The wine list is fabulous (it’s all about the Savoie wines) and as well as the classic, hearty Savoyard dishes, the chefs put an Asian spin on various fish and meats – a welcome hiatus from the rounds of raclette. 

  • maisontournier.com
    Address: Saint Bon FR, Rue de l'Altiport, 73120 Courchevel, France
    Phone: +33 4 79 08 33 10

    Courchevel’s oldest mountain restaurant lures in skiers with its jazz, winking rosé and (once the tiered platters of shellfish have been worked through) a chic table dancing scene. Its south facing, sun-trap terrace hosts a louche scene of lobster, truffle pizza, gourmet burgers and jeraboams. Book an outdoor table here on the sunniest day of your tri

  • lepilatus.com
    Address: 3031 Rue de l'Altiport, 73120 Courchevel, France
    Phone: +33 4 79 08 20 49

    As far as foodie theatre goes, watching pilots navigate Courchevel’s nail-bitingly short altiport runway in tiny private jets while tucking into sinfully-good, steaming tartiflettes is surely up there. That’s the dish to go for, or generally anything courting cheese (the raclette hits the spot, the soufflé hits a hard-to-reach one). Inside, it’s all Savoyard wood carvings, traditional Alpine curtains and original, low-slung beams, but the place to be is the terrace, when Courchevel switches on the sunshine.

Credit: La Cave Des Creux

 

You’ll see more Fendi than Fusalp here. Go big on cashmere for skiing, mincing around the chalet, and dressing up in the evening for dinner.

 

WELLNESS TIP

Après-ski Foot Massage at Aman Le Mélézin

Aman Le Mélézin’s Après-ski foot massage is the sort of circulation boosting, dry skin quenching treatment your cramped, squashed and well-worked tootsies are in desperate need of after a long day on the slopes. Look forward to hot compresses, a stimulating hot oil sports massage on your legs, targeting tense calf muscles, and really just an hour of well-earned bliss.

Credit: Le Melezin

 
 

PACKING TIP

Layer up the thermals and cashmere… terraces soon get cold

Cashmere sets for fireside boardgames after an après shower

Shearling gloves for walking around town 

A chic but functional ski suit (particularly if you’re up for off-piste)

Some statement ski goggles (this is Courchevel not Val D’Isere)

Fur-lined ski gloves to keep fingers warm on the Couloir

Alpine Bambi-print snowboots for the occasional mooch through town

Now’s the time to embrace the tinted-lens sunglasses trend

A shearling clutch bag for dinner

A swimsuit for après lengths and late night hot tub conventions

Wintery weekender for those jetting in for a few days

visualsoflukas

 

LOCAL FLAVORS

Cheval Blanc Courchevel’s crispy pike quenelle,
smoked egg beurre blanc recipe

Created by Chef Yannick Alléno and executed by Chef Renaud Dutel

INGREDIENTS

250/500g pike flesh, passed through a sieve

50/100g egg white

360/720g liquid cream

8/16g fine salt

3/6g ground white pepper

white bread

grape seed oil

DIRECTIONS

Blend the pike with the egg white in an ice-cold mixing bowl and add the cream and

seasonings gradually.Check the consistency by poaching a small quantity in simmering

water. Grease the quenelle moulds with olive oil and fill them with the mixture. Cover

each quenelle with the sliced sliced bread. Cover with cling film and bake for 8

minutes at 85 degrees in the steam oven. Remove the quenelles from the tin when

they are still warm.

 

ON OUR RADAR

The Carlton hotel by Rocco Forte is set to open in nearby Milan in 2025.

 
 

IMMERSE YOURSELF

PLAYLIST: Discover our lates apres playlist, available on Spotify

PLANNING SERVICES

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As an advisor independently affiliated with Brownell Travel, a luxury, Forbes endorsed, Virtuoso Agency, Jordan has a whole team helping plan her clients’ vacations.

Phebe Huth
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