Booking a ski holiday? This is the unmissable grande dame this season
Refurbished Suvretta House is the ultimate base for a 2026 ski holiday, writes Adam Hay-Nicholls
Had it been director Wes Anderson who’d adapted The Shining for the silver screen – rather than Stanley Kubrick – the fateful Overlook Hotel might have looked something like St Moritz’s Suvretta House.
Imagine that Walt Disney and Baron Münchausen went into property development together and built a Belle Époque eyrie perched at 1,850m. This Alpine fantasia has been catering to the ski holiday and spa demands of St Moritz’s quieter money for over a century. There are three grande dames in St Moritz: The Klum (est. 1856), Badrutt’s Palace (est. 1896), and Suvretta House (est. 1912), and it’s this relative newcomer that attracts the most aristocratic clientele generation after generation.
The wealthy playboy Gunther Sachs leased the penthouse of Badrutt’s for many years, but when he wanted to relax away from prying eyes he’d check into the Suvretta. Consider this a retreat from a retreat. You could argue – and I’ve heard many do so – that the Kulm and particularly Badrutt’s have become overtly flash during the past decade, attracting nouveau riche of dubious provenance. Not so the Suvretta, whose brand of luxury remains stoically old fashioned, but which has carefully integrated all sorts of contemporary flourishes.
Set in a peaceful sylvan a mile or so outside town and unique in having its own private button lift (the first guest to use it was the actor Douglas Fairbanks in 1935), Suvretta House remains St Moritz’s sole hotel that is ski-in ski-out: Essential for those of us that would choose Chinese water torture over having to walk anywhere in ski boots.
Guests are delivered directly to the Corviglia slopes after readying themselves in the hotel’s ski room, a set piece of state-of-the-art lockers, flickering fireplaces and circular sofas that seems lifted from the imagination of 007’s production designer, Sir Ken Adam. There’s also a games room where you’ll find a £105,000 Pininfarina-designed Roarington racing simulator. If your nerves aren’t sufficiently fried after a day on the reds and blacks, you can blast around Monza in a realistic-handling Ferrari F40.
Most impressive of the mod cons is the new £32 million Suvretta Spa, which has been designed by architects Ritter Schumacher and was opened in December. There are three-levels and 4,670 square metres of treatment rooms, a Technogym that’ll satisfy an Olympian, and hydrothermal delights that include four saunas (one is infrared and another is women-only), steam room, experience showers that make it feel like you’re in the Antarctic one second and the Amazon the next, glacial cold plunge, indoor and outdoor heated pools, a kids pool and a jacuzzi, all framed by forest vistas and a snowy horizon.
Dark suits and ties are non-negotiable when dining in The Grand Restaurant, which is precisely as it should be. Nothing has changed since the Shah of Iran, Eva Peron, King Farouk of Egypt, Gregory Peck and Alfred Hitchcock tucked in their napkins.
Other glam St Moritz spots The Kulm, Badrutt’s and the Grand Hotel des Bains Kempinski have similarly state-of-the art facilities and impressive views, but their design and lighting are more austere. The Suvretta Spa’s square footage is twice the size of the competition and the vibe is warm, informal and inviting. Treatments and products come courtesy of Sisley, Ila and the Swiss brand Cellcosmet. Classes are hosted by The Beat, which claims to be ‘Europe’s most exclusive pilates studio’, and are designed for all ages and fitness levels.
The 181 rooms and suites were recently updated by a British interior designer, with generous marble bathrooms and walk-in wardrobes, and a comforting colour palette of fresh green and warm orange tones. My bedroom looks across the Engadine valley and down to the hotel’s ice skating and curling rinks, which have been a seasonal fixture here for 114 years. The Kulm may be able to lay claim to the famous St Moritz Tobogganing Club, but Suvretta House is the only hotel in the world with its own curling club, and its gleaming rinks are said to be unmatched. It was also here, in 1925, that Switzerland’s first ski school was founded, and today over 200 Prada-suited instructors and guides are based from the hotel.
It was the British upper classes that put the luxury ski holiday on the map in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and that’s especially true of St Moritz’s story. In Suvretta House’s early days, the car park will have been rammed with vintage Bentleys and Lagondas. It’s not so different during the annual British Car Meeting which has congregated here for the past 30-odd years. It attracts Swiss owners, and some Brits, of such automotive icons as the E-Type Jaguar, the classic Mini Cooper, and many Aston Martins and Rolls-Royces from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. The event’s chairman happens to be Suvretta House’s immaculate GM, Peter Egli, who I suspect may’ve provided Tom Hiddleston with some inspiration for The Night Manager. He and his elegant wife Esther, who run the Suvretta as a team, are from Zurich, but both are passionate anglophiles. Before coming to St Moritz, they worked together at the Michelin star-winning Whatley Manor hotel in Wiltshire.
There is an Englishness which pervades Suvretta House. The Swiss hotelier who founded it, Anton Bon – whose family still own it seven generations later – would’ve been catering to the Brits from the word go. Everything from the air of understatement, the meaty armchairs, afternoon tea, twice-daily turndown service and dinner dress code will have been impressed upon it by the Edwardians. It’s the little touches I love, such as the walnut-panelled lift with a red leather banquette for three. Sitting down to travel four floors is just civilised.
Dark suits and ties are non-negotiable when dining in The Grand Restaurant, which is precisely as it should be. Nothing has changed since the Shah of Iran, Eva Peron, King Farouk of Egypt, Gregory Peck and Alfred Hitchcock tucked in their napkins. In 1919, the tables were cleared for ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky’s final ever performance (he called it his “wedding with God”). A hotel as discrete as Suvretta House would never reveal the names of their living celebrity guests. Taking one’s place for the four-course dinner is a distinction for even the most spoiled plutocrat. You’re surrounded by the original honey oak panelling, intricate triple-height cassette ceiling and carved pillars reminiscent of the first class dining room of a great pre-war ocean liner (the Suvretta happens to share its birth year with the Titanic), and the sorts of chandeliers and crystalware that would bring Uncle Albert out in a hot flush.
My fellow guests and I tucked into zesty Mediterranean tuna, light gnocchi with caviar, venison Wellington (a mountain spin on the British classic) and the restaurant’s signature Crêpes Suzette, flambéed a la table by a battalion of white-jacketed Italians with copper pans. The lashings of Grand Marnier were liberal. Afterwards, we retired to the smoking-friendly Anton’s Bar for Hoyo de Monterreys and Godfathers, with the accompaniment of a pianist and his singing spouse performing a novel twist on Depeche Mode.
The town of St Moritz isn’t the prettiest in the alps, and the shops and galleries are the same ones you’ll find in Mayfair. Apart from a couple of nightclubs you should visit once before you die (King’s Social House and the Dracula Ghost Riders’ Club), I suggest you’re better off secluding yourself in the Suvretta when you’re not on the slopes, but if you do wish to go and meet the throngs you can grab a complimentary lift anytime in a dark green 1920s Ford shooting brake (or the latest Range Rover, if you prefer).
I chose to confine all my dining to Suvretta’s establishments. In the bowels of the hotel is the Suvretta Stube, a traditional cozy, romantic auberge which serves fabulous fondue, bookended by St Moritz’s most celebrated steak tartare and colonel-style vodka sorbet (both of which are concocted theatrically tableside). Located just above the hotel is the Chasellas restaurant, the terrace of which is a wonderful suntrap for lunch while at night it serves sophisticated fare indoors, and a saffron risotto to die for. Trutz, meanwhile, was my preferred pitstop while skiing. I fuelled my exploits at 2,211m with a tray of snails and a £91 white truffle pizza, washed down with plenty of sensational Swiss wine.
Suvretta House is a true winter palace, steeped in history, but it is not a museum. Its updates have been sensitive and constant and in-line with Herr Bon’s original Anglo-Swiss vision. It preserves the best of the past, but embraces the future, not least in its megabucks new wellness offering. In another century Suvretta House will still be here, and it’ll remain the classiest hotel in the Swiss Alps.
Book this ski holiday
Winter rates at Suvretta House start from £500 per night in a double room on a half-board basis. Suvrettahouse.ch. Travel Switzerland’s Swiss Travel Pass offers international visitors unlimited travel across the country’s rail, bus and boat network. It also includes the Swiss Museum Pass which grants free entry to 500 museums and exhibitions. Prices start at £229 for a three-day ticket. swissrailways.com.