Best hotels in Val d’Isère

Once a far cry from Courchevel’s designer boutique and Michelin-starred, Dacha-luxe fanfare, and equally bearing little resemblance to Meribel’s old money, largely French and British family ski scene, snow-sure Val d’Isère always attracted a more adventurous tribe with its high peaks and exhilarating runs. And where do they stay? Why, at the best hotels in Val d’Isère, of course.

Serious skiers shrug at the three-to-four hour transfer from Geneva – worth it for the conditions, (surely?) the vast array of well-connected, challenging runs scribbled across the sacred Espace Killy ski area (recently renamed the Haute-Tarentaise linking Val d’Isère and Tignes), and the village, which, sigh, remains biscuit-tin pretty with its 17th-century church and on one manageable level. There’s also a cracking party scene – from après table thudding in the blinding sunlight to more civilised bars popping magnums of Kru like it’s going out of fashion. But for all its louche mountain lunch form, monster haute-chalets and extended-season glacier skiing, Val d’Isère lacked the high-end hotels to lure in the jet set. Until recently.

Its sporty, low-key demeanour and peak conditions for high-altitude madcappery (heli-skiing, snowmobiling and the like) caught the attention of hoteliers, weary of the consistently disappointing snowfall afflicting the usual ski season culprits, and the rampant butchering of traditional Alpine character in the name of hedonism. With its St Tropez and Courchevel stomping ground, Airelles’ 2020 opening signalled a seismic shift for Val d’Isère, as did the arrival of Le K2 Chogori, raising the resort’s hotel game to accompany the lifestyle, outdoorsy appeal. With their trademark geometry and haute-kook, Experimental moved in on the high altitude action in 2024, cementing Val d’Isère as the ultimate snow-sure, sporty Alpine resort, replete with all the lovely, louche trappings of the new global elite.

From gnarled beamed village stalwarts with legendary bars and sunny terraces to newcomers channelling the resort’s nostalgia for the golden age of mountaineering and more general winter tomfoolery, here are the best hotels in Val d’Isère.