Chetzeron is a Swiss ski lodge at the top of its game with dining and bedrooms at altitude
This destination restaurant has reached new heights. Leslie Woit makes her way up to enjoy the view
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Your support makes all the difference.A lot of ski chat is numbers-based. Total vertical, snow depth, skiable kilometres, altitude – if you can measure it, it counts. Well, there's a super stylish Alpine hotel – more of a restaurant with rooms actually – perfectly positioned a scant 10 metres from the lift. Yet this particular measurement doesn't matter a bit. When you step out of the door in the morning, you're already at the top.
High above the Valais resort of Crans-Montana, the first incarnation of this 1963 gondola station was to decant four generations of skiers at 2,100m into the midst of the sparkling peak-filled panorama crowning the Rhone Valley above Sierre. Consigned to the scrap heap in 2001 when it was replaced by a new lift nearby, the severe, striking brick edifice was reborn eight years later as Chetzeron, a sophisticated mountain restaurant. Today, it's a bed for the night, too.
There are two ways to check in to Chetzeron's rooms. The first is by ski or foot via a blue piste called Cry d'Er; your bags will arrive by snowmobile. My arrival took the second, more adventurous route. Because I arrived in Crans-Montana after the lifts had stopped running, I hopped on the piste basher express. The back loaded with wine boxes and food supplies, owner Sami Lamaa and I bundled into the heated snowcat and set off to plough uphill, headlights illuminating a forest bouncing with deer and rabbit. Half an hour later we alighted on a deserted mountain top – the only sound the crunch of snow beneath our boots, the only sight, the 65-75 stars twinkling in the velvet black sky. Sami should know, he'd done the counting for us.
“The basis of Chetzeron is to cut people off from reality and mobile phones,” he explained, as we warmed ourselves inside on sheepskin throws next to an open fire with a glass of Valais wine. “To cut people from reality these days is very difficult.”
I was an easy conquest. I'd be fibbing if I said I'd nabbed first tracks from the doorstep, one of the key attractions of overnighting at Chetzeron. To my embarrassment, my reality was cut off until well after 10am the next morning, in a stupor the length and depth of my down-dappled king-size bed. When I finally awoke, sunshine ricocheted off a hundred peaks and the first skiers were schussing past my door. It seemed a shame to rush out without accepting a late feast of fresh pain au chocolat, fruit salad and superb coffee, and I was keen to indulge in a little soak in the deep, two-man tub, beneath a huge picture window. So I did. And if the windows appear perfectly oriented to the views, they are. Chinese Taoist monks were invited up during a visit to Switzerland to consult on the feng shui of the redesign. “They ran up the mountain like goats without shoes,” says Sami, “and they found very good energy here.”
Recharged and renewed, with firm plans to return for lunch, I stepped straight from the terrace into Crans-Montana's 140km of pistes and 27 lifts. I made my way up to Bellalui, and down to the Nationale slope, host to the high-speed likes of Didier Cuche and American super-star Lynsey Vonn during its World Cup races. Far below, the village sits at 1,500 metres on a sunny shelf. It forms the lower border of skiable terrain, and lifts rise to a top altitude of 3,000 metres.
Known in the Sixties and Seventies for its jetset clientele, Crans-Montana's star seemed to be receding. But in the past few years, a reported investment of 1bn Swiss francs (£0.7bn) is injecting new life. Hotels such as five-star Guarda Golf and new chalets that include elegant Crans Luxury Lodges and fit-for-a-Tsar Chalet Seven have attracted newcomers. Even Roger Moore abandoned his beloved Gstaad to spend winters here. When I arrived back for lunch at Chetzeron after my morning tour round the rolling reaches of permanently-snowy Plaine-Morte Glacier and a leisurely mosey down a long 10km piste, I even encountered Heston Blumenthal tucking into a shared plate of venison sausage.
The terrace and restaurant were heaving with skiers enjoying fragrant slow-cooked beef with fried gnocchi, lamb stew with thyme and polenta, and lashings of fantastic wine produced at the foot of the Valais garden – either on the expansive wooden terrace strewn with fur- covered deck chairs and large tables or inside beside the fire. The best bit? There's no need to leave. Your bed's turned down, and both it – and the lift – are just steps away.
Staying there
Hotel Chetzeron (00 41 2 7485 0800; chetzeron.ch) has double rooms from 345 Swiss francs (£239), B&B.
Momentum Ski (020 7371 9111; momentumski.com) offers three nights' B&B in Crans-Montana, staying at the three-star Hotel Valaisia, from £598pp with BA flights from Gatwick to Geneva and Swiss Rail return transfers.
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