Saint Gervais les Bains, France

Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa

Price per night from$352.50

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR325.82), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Alpine A-lister

Setting

Starring in hamlet

First impressions of Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa can lead you astray. Built on the site of an old village bakery, this newbie mountain stay resembles a long-standing charmer, with a timbered exterior designed to blend into its Alpine hamlet setting. The hotel’s allure, however, is thoroughly contemporary: three ski-in, ski-out chalets, a stellar spa, a choice of restaurants and bars, plus polished ski-lodge interiors dressed with Italian flair. Thoughtful extras such as shuttles to town, ski kit delivery and private dining for chalet guests make stays here a refreshing breeze – with chairlift access to Evasion Mont-Blanc only metres away. 

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A cocktail each on arrival and a room upgrade when available

Facilities

Photos Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa facilities

Need to know

Rooms

19, including four suites, plus three chalets (one sleeps eight; two sleep 14).

Check–Out

11.30am; earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.

Prices

Double rooms from £307.11 (€358), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €3.30 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Rates exclude breakfast (€35 at the restaurant; €39 to dine in-room).

Also

Enjoy continental breakfast in bed with yogurt, cereal, fruit, fresh pastries and your choice of eggs or pancakes delivered to your room. Chalet guests have the option to book a private chef and food service, or ad hoc meal and picnic deliveries.

Hotel closed

The hotel closes annually in April until mid-May, and in November.

At the hotel

Ski lockers, lounge with fireplace, terrace, salon du thé/bakery, choice of restaurants, pool table, guest shuttle. In rooms: free WiFi, smart TV, bluetooth speaker, minibar, free tea & coffee, free bottled water, Damana bath products.

Our favourite rooms

There are no short straws at Armancette: balconied rooms are individually styled with sumptuous Italian textiles, local timber and stone and marble ensuites. Multi-bedroom options are given as much emphasis as retreats for two. For larger groups, three slopeside chalets above the hotel are traditionally timbered yet contemporary, with bold, Italian-inspired interiors, and benefit from free extras such as concierge service and town shuttles.

Poolside

A long, heated pool in the spa extends outdoors to a decked terrace with mountain views of Mont Blanc. There’s also a trio of hot tubs: two alfresco, one indoors.

Spa

A timbered-and-tiled spa covers all your wellness needs, from energising to soothing. Its 24-hour fitness room is equipped with treadmills, static bikes, elliptical and rowing machines, as well as free weights, with personal training available five days a week. We couldn’t wait to sling aside the salopettes and dive into the spa’s indoor-outdoor pool, hammam, sauna and relaxation area of plumply pillowed woven sofas. Book a treatment ritual for face or body using KOS Paris products – an ethical, plant-based spa range – in one of the spa’s two treatment rooms (available 10am–7pm). Chalet guests can enjoy a more exclusive set-up: there’s a private spa area at Aster, and Silène and Carline are next door to a dedicated spa chalet – home to a treatment room, sauna and hot tub.

Packing tips

Ski or board wear in winter – hiking and biking gear in summer. For evenings, the dress code is laid-back glamour: trousers rather than dresses; tactile layers, shimmer or prints rather than jewels; flats rather than heels.

Also

The hotel is wheelchair accessible with a lift and one adapted room for wheelchair users. Spa and gym access for chalet guests is by reservation. A guest shuttle ferries guests to and from St-Gervais-Les-Bains.

Pet‐friendly

No pets are allowed at this exclusive mountain stay. See more pet-friendly hotels in Saint Gervais les Bains.

Children

Very welcome, with a choice of family and duplex rooms; kids club (seasonal) and babysitting (from €20 an hour).

Best for

Under 11s can benefit from the kids’ club at the hotel and are less likely than tweens and teens to mind its quiet hamlet setting.

Recommended rooms

There are family and duplex rooms in the hotel for up to six. Larger groups will love the slopeside chalets, all of which include a bunk room of four singles, and sleep either eight or 14 in total.

Crèche

Armancette’s Kids Club is (free) for children aged four to ten and runs during the winter season and summer school holidays.

Activities

Games, outdoor fun, arts and crafts and storytelling at Kids Club; guided family hiking and mountain biking; mini-golf, toboggan runs, dog sledding, horse-drawn carriage rides, skiing and snowboarding lessons.

Swimming pool

You’ll need to check with reception as to when the heated indoor-outdoor pool at the spa is open to (supervised) children.

Meals

Highchairs are provided; chalets come with fully equipped kitchens and there’s a children’s menu available at La Table d’Armante and Le Bistrot Le Mont Joly.

Babysitting

Babysitting can be booked ahead from €20 an hour and the hotel offers a baby-listening service.

No need to pack

Board games and books are in plentiful supply and chalets come with films on demand.

Also

The hotel supplies dedicated Petit Prince bath products for little Smiths.

Sustainability efforts

The hotel and chalets were built using local materials, all the better to blend into the existing village; there used to be a bakery here, so a salon du thé selling bread and bakes to locals is part of the build. The hotel has an electric composter for repurposing food waste and works with local suppliers for produce and ingredients. There’s no single-use plastic – just filtered mountain water in glass bottles, eco-friendly bath products in full-size refillable bottles, bamboo straws in the bar and hazel-wood key cards. The hotel uses a scheme that upcycles leftover soap for distribution France-wide to under-privileged households. The grounds have been planted with bees in mind and there are plans to install beehives, too.

Food and Drink

Photos Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa food and drink

Top Table

Method diners (all about the process) may prefer a ringside seat next to the open kitchen at La Table d’Armante.

Dress Code

Ready-to-ski is fine for breakfast; for dinner at La Table d’Armante, up the ante with textured knits, shimmering or embellished layers.

Hotel restaurant

La Table d’Armante is a timbered dining room open for breakfast, but by night it’s an altogether more gastronomic affair with a French menu that showcases more than just mountain cuisine and culminates in what appears to be the transport of our dreams: a cheese chariot. Executive chef Fabien Laprée and team whip up dishes such as roasted sea bass with oysters tartare, duck and foie gras pithivier with buttered greens, and a meltingly good slow-cooked fillet of beef with black chanterelles. Across the road from the hotel, Le Bistrot Le Mont Joly is a laid-back spot for drinks or casual dining (fireplace in the lounge, check; pool table, check). Open for lunch, afternoon tea and dinner, plus brunch on Sundays, it serves Alpine home cooking and Italian fare: Savoyard favourites such as fondue and tartiflette are on the menu alongside burgers, soup, pizzette and croquettes, as well as heartier mains including shoulder of lamb with polenta, and pork filet mignon in a mushroom sauce. With homemade bread, pastries and viennoiseries, the hotel’s salon du thé is the hotel’s between-meals pitstop.

Hotel bar

Listing 800 vintages and Grand Crus, the Mont Joly Wine Bar across the way from the main hotel is an oenophile’s delight; those less familiar with French tipples can sign up to a group or private workshops with the hotel sommelier, exploring old vintages, forgotten varietals and lesser know organic and biodynamic wines.

Last orders

The salon du thé is open 7am–5.30pm. La Table d’Armante serves breakfast 7am–10am and dinner, Wednesday to Monday, 7pm–10.30pm; lunch (weekends only) is 11.30am–2.30pm. Lunch at Le Bistrot is 11.30am–3pm; afternoon tea until 6.30pm; dinner, 7pm–11.30pm.

Room service

Breakfast is the only meal you can order to your room, between 7.30am and 10am.

Location

Photos Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa location
Address
Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa
4088 Rte de Saint-Nicolas
Saint-Gervais-les-Bains
74170
France

Over the hill from Megève in Haute-Savoie, Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa is in the hamlet of St Nicolas de Véroce, near St-Gervais-Les-Bains, with access to the Evasion Mont Blanc ski area.

Planes

Geneva airport is a 75-minute drive away. The hotel can arrange private minibus transfers from €360 each way. Alternatively, Lyon St Exupéry and Grenoble airports are each two hours and 15 minutes away by road. Megève airport is an option for private charters and helicopter transfers.

Trains

St-Gervais-Les-Bains—Le Fayet is 20 minutes away and has direct services to Geneva and connections to Paris via Annecy. The hotel can arrange private minibus transfers from €70 each way.

Automobiles

The hotel offers free valet parking and has a private garage at ground level, featuring several charging terminals for electric vehicles. Chalets, too, have garages with electric chargers.

Worth getting out of bed for

A five-minute walk away, the church in St Nicolas de Véroce is a baroque beauty with an art museum attached. The hotel can arrange visits to local farms for tours and tastings. Picturesque mountain playground, the Mont-Blanc massif, is a place to hike or bike in summer – try via ferrata, paragliding, climbing, rafting or hydrospeeding (white-water sledging). Take the Mont-Blanc tramway to the top of the Bionnassay Glacier or a rack-railway to Montenvers and the Mer de Glace ice cave; towards Chamonix, you can take a cable car to the top of L’Aiguille du Midi beside Mont-Blanc. Winter brings snow-fuelled fun from the sedentary (snowshoeing, horse-drawn carriage rides, dog sledding) to the energetic ( skiing, snowboarding, biathlon and fat-bike riding). For a unique spin on winter thrills, try an Armancette Moon Bike trip (imagine, if you can, a motorbike on snow). The massif can be admired at any time of year with a private flight or helicopter tour across the range or a hot-air balloon ride in spectacular Alpine scenery. Revive tired muscles with a body treatment at the hotel spa or with a trip to the thermal baths in St-Gervais-Les-Bains. Little Smiths are well catered for with toboggan runs on the mountain, treetop adventures, guided family-friendly hiking and mountain biking, ski and snowboard lessons and mini-golf in St-Gervais.

Local restaurants

Chalet hotel La Ferme de Cupelin in St-Gervais-Les-Bains serves finessed plates of seasonal food in a traditional, timbered dining room accompanied by mountain views by day. Chef Romain Desgranges, a local, is constantly refining a menu inspired by the readiness of ingredients from local suppliers and regional produce, creating prix-fixe tasting menus, themed as promenades. Also in St-Gervais-Les-Bains, Restaurant Le Sérac is a contemporary, monochrome-hued dining room: the cuisine may be Alpine but dispel all thoughts of a hearty tartiflette – portions are modest with a focus on flavour and elegant presentation; the ravenous may prefer the cuts and steaks on offer at its more laid-back sister restaurant BistrotSérac. A 20-minute drive away in Megève, La Ferme Saint Amour’s chalet-nouveau dining room (you may know its sister restaurant from Courcheval) combines traditional timbers and a whole herd of sheepskin-draped chairs with mirrored walls, neon signage and a party atmosphere. Its variety-rich menu borrows from Asian, Italian and Spanish cuisines in dishes such as Iberico pork cooked with fennel, onion and sherry vinegar and prawns in coconut broth with jasmine rice, alongside Savoyard favourites such as fondue.

Reviews

Photos Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this mountain stay in Haute-Savoie and unpacked their beaufort and génépy, a full account of their Alpine break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa in Pays du Mont-Blanc

Old and new have been potently paired at Armancette Hôtel, Chalets & Spa. Its long-established locale – a mountain hamlet – has been a steadying influence on this newly built hotel (whose owner, architect and interior designer all have roots here). Classic chalet-style buildings, refined French fare and scroll of winter sports on offer (made effortless with kit delivery, a ski room with heated lockers and chairlift access to the Evasion Mont Blanc ski area) show reverence for the hotel’s Alpine heritage. Then there’s the salon du thé: a nod to the hotel’s location on the site of an old bakery that’s restored a (previously lost) croissant supply. Cherry-picking the finer aspects of Alpine tradition leaves plenty of scope to improve upon it. Three slopeside chalets have all the rustic good looks you’d expect from a conventional mountain stay and all the modern extras (private dining, an on-site spa and shuttles to town) you wouldn’t. Interiors are a confident blend of heritage and à la mode; flamboyant Italian textiles paired with local timber and stone turn out to have head-turning chemistry. A choice of restaurants, a bakery, wine bar and high-spec spa create little impetus to venture beyond St Nicolas. The mountains around Mont Blanc, however, are on your doorstep and the shops, restaurants and thermal baths of St-Gervais-Les-Bains, only a shuttle ride away.

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Price per night from $352.50