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 (CHF472.06), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Classic glamour and finessed mod-cons come together with winning chemistry at Grace La Margna St Moritz. This overhauled boutique stay is a tale of two wings – a restored art nouveau hotel and a state-of-the-art annexe, combined seamlessly with a choice of restaurants and a stellar spa. Polished service, ski and bike rental on site and an impressive kids’ club bolster the hotel’s contemporary appeal. Muted, modern rooms retain period features in the original wing, with bumped up room sizes in the new one. A central location just uphill from St Moritz’s shopping mile makes light work of exploring the resort’s enduring charms.
Noon; earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £432.18 (CHF490), including tax at 3.8 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of CHF5.00 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates include breakfast with hot dishes cooked to order.
Also
History is woven into the very fabric of Grace La Margna: Nicolaus Hartmann’s 1906 granite pillars, ornate plasterwork and wooden panelling have all been restored across La Margna wing; even the roof tiles are (original) locally mined Val Fex slates.
At the hotel
Ski/bike rental, gift shop, sun terraces, cigar lounge. In rooms: free WiFi, flatscreen TV, tablet, minibar, Sjöstrand coffee maker, free tea and coffee, free bottled water, Feuerstein bath products.
Our favourite rooms
On the fifth floor of the La Margna wing, a panoramic junior suite and two deluxe rooms share incredible views of the lake. The La Margna corner suite has a unique bay alcove home to a curved bench and table. With a wraparound roof terrace and Jacuzzi, Grace wing’s three-bedroom penthouse suite is a clear showstopper.
Poolside
Between 7am and 10pm a heated 20-metre long pool (with a counter-current system) is open to all guests in the basement spa.
Spa
A lounge at the entrance to the 700-square-metre Grace spa opens onto a sun terrace with lake views, where you can order from a wellness-led menu of drinks and light bites. Beyond this, you’ll find the main pool, a hydrotherapy pool of jets and fountains, a steam room, sauna and assortment of wellness showers. Klafs collagen therapy is available as well as a range of restorative face and body treatments. A private spa suite with terrace, loungers, a Jacuzzi, steam bath and couple’s treatment room is available for exclusive use. The Technogym-equipped fitness suite has the same mesmerising lake views as the spa.
Packing tips
Park any concerns of overdoing the glamour: glitz, statement jewels, layered cashmere and designer snowwear are all de rigueur in St Moritz.
Also
In-room beauty treatments are available; some suites accommodate in-room dining; all communal areas and three rooms are wheelchair accessible.
Very welcome. The vibe may be grown-ups only, but when little Smiths are in tow, there are family-friendly options for suites and extra beds in rooms, plus a kids’ club with zones to suit tots, teens and in-betweens.
Best for
All ages are welcome. Kids aged 12 or older are charged as adults.
Recommended rooms
Some suites come with a sofabed in the living room. Extra beds can be added in some rooms at extra cost.
Crèche
The kids' club at Grace La Margna is a specially commissioned design by MyLittleRoom in Geneva with different zones tailored by age group offering a wealth of indoor play, arts and crafts, screen time and entertainment.
Activities
Skiing and snowboarding lessons can be arranged through the concierge and kit hire is available at the hotel.
Swimming pool
The heated chlorinated pool and hydrotherapy pool have no lifeguard and children must swim with a supervising adult.
Babysitting
With notice, the hotel can arrange a babysitter at extra cost.
At the View, take a table beside the floor-to-ceiling windows. At the Stack, beside the private dining room there’s a built-in timbered booth and table that’ll seat six; or bag a table with rustic Alpine benches against the mirror-tiled wall.
Dress Code
Alpine chic, layering cashmere, merino and shearling: up the glamour with statement accessories for dinner at either restaurant.
Hotel restaurant
Aptly named (but not open at the time of writing), the View has vistas of the lake and Bernina peaks beyond that you’ll never tire of, even if you were to take breakfast (a continental buffet, with hot dishes cooked to order), lunch and dinner here. We can’t wait to try its Mediterranean menu of salads, seafood, pizza and pasta. The dining room itself has a cosy midcentury vibe with a slatted timber ceiling, curved banquettes and retro dining chairs, plus olive-green upholstery and linened pedestal tables. Downstairs, dinner-only the Stack has its own south-facing entrance from the street and consists of two rooms – one timbered, one with vaulted stucco ceilings and lampshade chandeliers; there’s also a secluded wood-panelled room for private dining. The concept here is part brasserie, part steakhouse with a pledge to showcase vegetarian-friendly plates alongside prime cuts. A third space, Max Moritz, will serve as a pop-up restaurant, hosting visiting chefs and seasonal culinary events. For afternoon tea and fizz beside the fire head to the Living Room, a restored hall with listed granite pillars, a vaulted ceiling and wooden panelling.
Hotel bar
Parquet flooring, original plasterwork, wrought-iron chandeliers and lounge seating in shades of grey bring panache to lounge-bar No.5, where the counter is solid marble and the cocktails are suitably classic.
Last orders
The View serves breakfast, 7am–10.30am; lunch, 12–2pm (until 6pm in winter), and dinner, 6pm–10.30pm. The Stack is open from 6pm until 10pm daily (Wednesday to Sunday in low season).
Room service
A dedicated menu of snacks and light bites is available 24/7.
Grace La Margna is in St Moritz in the upper Engadin valley in Switzerland’s Graubünden canton.
Planes
Zurich, Innsbruck and Milan Malpensa are the nearest international airports (each around three hours from the hotel by road). The hotel can arrange private transfers at extra cost on request. For private jet or helicopter transfers, Engadin airport is a 10-minute drive from the hotel.
Trains
St Moritz railway station is 100 metres from the hotel, with connections from Zurich airport (under four hours) via Zurich and Chur, or Milan Malpensa (around six hours) via Bellinzona and Thusis.
Automobiles
There’s a private car park at the hotel (from CHF40 a night) and valet parking is available at no extra cost.
Worth getting out of bed for
Artists and aristos – from Swedish royals to Iranian shahs, from filmmakers to fashion designers – have long favoured the Swiss spa town of St Moritz. Perhaps its popularity stems from the enduring beauty of the upper Engadin valley, where the Bernina mountains reflect in the forest-flanked lake and the winter pistes of Corviglia are accessed easily (skijoring in winter and kite-surfing in summer are two less obvious ways to soak up its scenery). Or perhaps visitors are drawn by the spectacle of so many unique accolades – St Moritz is the birthplace of Alpine wintersports, home of ice toboggan track the Cresta Run, the setting for White Turf (winter horse racing) and terminus for renowned mountain railway, the Glacier Express. Alongside typical Alpine pursuits such as skiing and snowboarding, hiking and mountain biking, St Moritz has plenty of less energetic options: take the funicular from town to Chantarella-Corviglia, then a cable car to the summit of Piz Nair for bird’s-eye views over the resort (no mountain-scaling required). A little further down Via Serlas, designer stores such as Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Cartier line up to flex your credit card. Events in St Moritz – including snow polo and La Tavolata (sit-down dining on the town’s pedestrianised streets), a spot on the Ski World Cup circuit, plus jazz and food festivals – fill the calendar, so check ahead to see what’s on.
Local restaurants
Nominally a wine bar where you can graze on antipasti (anchovies, bruschetta, beef carpaccio) with a wide choice of wines (Piedmont reds especially), strands of tagliatelle drying in the window are all the clue you need to unearth La Scarpetta’s trump card: a daily changing selection of handmade pasta. A choice of three lifts takes you for lunch on the mountain at Chamanna, a hearty Swiss affair with a sun-kissed terrace that sees après-ski start early. Kathrin and Danijel Krasnic make meat into an art form at Dal Mulin, with elegant plates of duck liver terrine, oxtail consommé, saddle of venison and braised veal cheeks.
Local cafés
Saunter along Via Maistra to Hanselmann for coffee and a slice of Engadine walnut tart. It’s a slice of history too – the coffee house and bakery has been around for 125 years, serving pralines and macarons to its share of celebs.
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 hotel in Switzerland and unpacked their shearling gilets and Prada snowboots, a full account of their lakeside break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Grace La Margna St Moritz…
Coco Chanel, Brigitte Bardot, Alfred Hitchcock… so many iconic figures grace St Moritz’s starry past and the spa town has always had the grande-dame hotels to host them. Now, boutique stay Grace La Margna vies for the crowd du jour’s attention, offering polished interiors, finessed service and modern trappings on a more exclusive scale. Like its accommodation (spread between a new wing and the original art nouveau building), the hotel’s amenities are a joyous juxtaposition of old and new: in a granite-pillared, chandeliered living room, you can take afternoon tea by the open fire or head to the state-of-the-art spa, where a 20-metre-long pool, wellness showers and Swiss-calibre treatments await. Dine at brasserie-meets-steakhouse the Stack (it has a walk-in wine cellar), or relish refined Mediterranean fare at midcentury-modern the View. All rooms and suites blend neutral hues with designer furnishings: Grace Wing rooms are a touch more contemporary and larger; classic and cosy La Margna rooms have period features. From your prime position on Via Serlas, Corviglia’s slopes are only a funicular ride away (the hotel rents ski and board or mountain biking kit) and St Moritz’s shops and gourmet restaurants are just as accessible.
