Megève, France

Le Lodge Park

Price per night from$456.47

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 (EUR420.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Alpine cowboy

Setting

Middle of Megève

If Heidi came into money, moved to Megève, and bought a chalet hotel, it might resemble Le Lodge Park: a fur- and leather-lavished snow queen with antler chandeliers, a feather-fringed gourmet restaurant and a spa specializing in mountain-plucked unguents.

Smith Extra

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A bottle of wine from the hotel's vineyard and a Pure Altitude (Le Lodge Park's mountain-plant-based beauty range) product; guests staying four nights also get a cocktail at the bar

Facilities

Photos Le Lodge Park facilities

Need to know

Rooms

49, including 11 suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 4pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £394.80 (€462), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €2.00 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Breakfast (€35 an adult, €18 for kids 12-and-under) is not included.

Also

Have an Alpine-inspired massage or facial in the spa. Ingredients for the treatments are plucked from the mountains; some, like the snow crystals body scrub, are appropriately icy.

At the hotel

Spa, gym, library, and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen TV, minibar and signature spa products.

Our favourite rooms

Lodge and Lodge Fireplace rooms are cute and cosy, with Ralph Lauren homeware and splashes of tartan; visiting trappers should bed down in the Park Suites, which have brushed-steel chairs, blood-red ostrich leather walls and shaggy fur throws. If, on the other hand, you’re a visiting rock star, the Plentitude Suite has your name on it: designer pieces, hefty boulder fireplace in matt black, princely bed with a curly-hide headboard, Philippe Starck lighting and a sleekly modern stone-tiled bathroom.

Spa

There are five treatment rooms at the hotel's Pure Altitude spa, each with a rustic, Alpine feel. Made from local mountain plants, their home-made products are used in a range of detoxifying and age-defying treatments from the signature Le Secret du Skieur sports massage to the rejuvenating Sève de Vie facial.

Packing tips

Swimwear; Chanel skiwear (and matching goggles); Dolce for dinner.

Pet‐friendly

Bring your dog/s too, for €30 a dog, for each night. See more pet-friendly hotels in Megève.

Children

Extra beds for over-12s can be added to the Park Suite for €88 a night; cots (€25) can be added to larger rooms. Babysitting is €15 an hour.

Best for

Snow bunnies: five years and upwards.

Recommended rooms

Opt for one of the Park Suite rooms, which sleep two adults and two children with plenty of space left over.

Activities

 Skiing, of course, and the full gamut of winter sports.

Meals

 Children are allowed in the hotel restaurant. High chairs can be provided, and staff will happily heat up baby food/milk.

Babysitting

A local nanny can be booked (€15 an hour).

No need to pack

For €25, parents with babies in tow get a baby welcome pack, which includes a cot, bottle warmer, bath, bath thermometer, and changing table.

Food and Drink

Photos Le Lodge Park food and drink

Top Table

The smaller, semi-circular dining room has a wall of windows – perfect for starry-eyed dinners à deux.

Dress Code

Creature comforts: leather, fur, and sheepskin, dressed up with silks and diamonds at dinner.

Hotel restaurant

Fur, feather-trimmed curtains, wood, horn and leather: the hotel’s unabashed alpine opulence continues in its restaurant, which glitters with candles by night. Big-game and animal-print furnishings add a safari flavour to the mix; white-leather chesterfields, log-adorned ceilings, and vast antler chandeliers keep things quirky. The menu at the Beef Lodge is a carnivore's dream, serving delicious slabs of perfectly cooked meat including rib of Black Angus or Bavarian beef, fillet of Simmental beef and choice cuts of lamb and veal (there are also juicy scallops to please pescetarians). Tables are dressed in immaculate clotted-cream-coloured linens, so eat tidily.

Hotel bar

Le Bar Espace Trappeurs looks to New England for its style: all bleached wood, muted forest-and-farmhouse hues, log tables and antlers – many antlers. Stake out one of the chesterfields inside, or snuggle under a fat fur blanket on one of the outside seats. In such a setting, only champagne cocktails are appropriate (though we wouldn’t turn down a frozen vodka shot, either).

Last orders

Breakfast is served between 7.30am and 11am; lunch is noon ’til 2.30pm; dinner is 7.30pm until 10pm. Tipples are to be had in the bar between 11am and 11pm.

Room service

24-hour a day. Order hot dishes to your room during the restaurant’s opening hours; cold options after.

Location

Photos Le Lodge Park location
Address
Le Lodge Park
100 rue d'Arly
Megeve
74120
France

Planes

Geneva airport is 74km away.

Trains

Sallanches–Combloux-Megeve is 12km away, served by SNCF (www.sncf.com).

Automobiles

Annecy is an hour away by car. Hotel parking costs €25 a day.

Other

Have a helicopter or other small aeroplane? Land it at the altiport 8km from the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

Hire ski kit from Ski Concept next to the Chamois lift (+33 (0)4 50 58 91 21), and take to the intermediate slopes. Head to the Place de la Résistance and admire the town views while you swoosh around the outdoor skating rink (2pm–8pm daily). Take a horse-drawn carriage ride around town and into the valley – there’s a ‘pony rank’ in the main square. For an eagle’s-eye view of the valley, book a hot-air-balloon ride with Alpes Montgolfière (+33 (0)4 50 55 50 60). Le Lodge Park’s excellent concierge can organise skiing jaunts, trips to local swimming pools, ice-rinks and gyms, helicopter rides, heliskiing, paragliding and more.

Local restaurants

Visit Le Lodge Park’s sister hotel, Les Fermes de Marie on Chemin de Riante Colline, for its dining room: Le Restaurant Traditional. The hearty mountain menu includes veal sweetbreads with liquorice and wine; sea bream with citrus sauce, fennel and artichokes, and local cheeses with cherry jam and crusty homemade bread. Stay in the same building for Le Restaurant Alpin (+ 33 (0)4 50 93 03 10) and sample calorific alpine favourites: raclette, fondue and the lesser-known pella (similar to tartiflette, but with Beaufort rather than Reblochon). Les Enfants Terribles at the Hôtel Mont-Blanc (another of Le Lodge’s siblings) is arty and bold, both in terms of decor and cuisine. Here, traditional dishes are re-imagined: crispy prawns with apple juice, cod with olive oil, and hefty puddings – try to conquer the mighty (chestnut-laced) Mont Blanc. Give your palate a break from cheese, and feast on zingy oysters at sleek and cosy Le Cintra in Place de l'Eglise.

 

Local cafés

Lunch on whisper-light tartes salées, followed by hand-made meringues and truffles, at pint-sized patisserie-café, Le Comptoir du Père Sotieu, on Rue du Général Muffat St Amour (+33 (0)4 50 21 67 51).

Reviews

Photos Le Lodge Park reviews
Jori White

Anonymous review

By Jori White, PR party queen

I admit it. I’m a snob. Not in a ghastly way, you understand. But when it comes to travel, I like to swerve the beaten track, mix with interesting people and stay in five-star comfort. Don’t get me wrong, I can camp with the best of them. (OK, so it was a yurt in the grounds of a stately home.) But give me Hermès toiletries and 24/7 room service and I’m a very happy hotel-bunny.

Being asked to review a luxury hotel in Megève, the Rhônes-Alpes resort described as upmarket, exceedingly glamorous and ever-so-slightly pretentious, sounded the perfect assignment. Seduced by a romantic weekend away and the chance to sample the prettiest pistes in Europe, Mr Smith was delighted to offer his two cent’s worth on Le Lodge Park.

At first sight, the hotel confounded expectations. Built from rough-hewn logs and stone, it is less Alpine glamour and more Rocky Mountains toughness. The distinct look continues into the lobby where we were greeted by a riot of animals – on the walls, on the columns, on the chairs and on the floors. Everywhere was an orgy of antlers and deer heads, of zebra- and leopard-prints, of cowhide and ostrich. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does – and quite brilliantly.

Our suite, complete with the obligatory animal body part outside the door (stag feet, this time), was well laid-out with a large bedroom, sitting room with a real fire perfect for a pre-dinner a glass of wine, and spectacular wraparound views. Unconventional attention-grabbing touches included steel chairs, leather walls and tartan motifs, appreciated by a Scottish Mr Smith.

Dusk falling, it was time to explore. Thierry, the concierge, is charm personified, offering great advice on getting the most out of our weekend. (The only disappointment was that there was only one massage appointment left in Le Lodge’s spa. Note to self: book treatments well in advance.)

Belying its mediaeval appearance, Megève was, in a way, the original purpose-built French ski resort. Its entire existence is down to Baroness de Rothschild and her desire to create a ‘Saint Moritz français’. The mid-1920s saw the resort become a second home for European royalty. Indeed, so enthusiastically did the beau monde embrace Megève, that by the 1950s Jean Cocteau had taken to calling it the ‘21st arrondissement of Paris’. Stars may have decamped to other galaxies (Courchevel is the place to go, although I think it lacks the history, character and atmosphere), but still Megève’s remains a big draw for the well-heeled.

Sightseeing tour over it was back to Le Lodge for dinner. One of the hottest tickets in town, that’s another advantage to staying here. The elaborate, feather-fringed dining room promises a culinary tour of the world, via spare ribs, king crab and sashimi. And truffles. Lots of them. Luckily both of us are partial to a spot of tartufo, and we happily feasted on carbs laced with them.

Wishing to enjoy a day’s snowboarding to the full, Mr Smith advised me he wanted an early night. Unfortunately the lure of Jazz Les Cinq Rues, Haute Savoy’s answer to Ronnie Scott’s, proved impossible to resist. The next morning, we plump for room service. As reception was constantly engaged and we were in urgent need of caffeine, we resorted to using our mobiles to call the hotel. Luckily when our petit dejeuner did finally make an appearance, it was worth the wait. The coffee was spectacular, sweetly scented with the flavour of freshly roasted almonds.

At last it was time to hit the pistes, something of which there is no shortage in Megève. There are 300 kilometres of marked trails, served by 81 lifts (some admittedly looking a bit past their sell by date), and snow parks and a half-pipe are available for snowboarding. In search of more challenging runs we headed for the steeper, bumpier, untended terrain at the top of Mont Joly. L’Alpette, situated on the Rochebrune massif, was perfect for lunch. Hamburgers to die for and an extraordinary dessert buffet a delight to behold. In the afternoon they crank up the music and you can hear it cascading down the mountains.

Sated, we decided to check out Megève’s legendary après-ski scene with a couple of schnapps at La Calèche, before heading back to Le Lodge to soothe our ski-weary bodies with a steam in the hammam. Fur-covered chairs by the open fires on the hotel terrace are irresistible, and it took a huge amount of willpower to head off in search of dinner.

With 81 restaurants, you won’t go hungry in Megève. Fondue at Chez Alice is fun, as is La Sauvageonne, on the outskirts, and the legendary Flocons de Sel, recently awarded a third Michelin star. Drinking is equally big business in Megève. The town is littered with enough wine and cocktail bars to satisfy the most demanding hedonists. As the night wore on, it became clear that this Mr and Mrs Smith were no match for the brighter young things intent on partying until dawn, so we left them to it.

Retiring early proved wise when we were not so much roused as dragged from our slumbers by the sound of church bells outside our bedroom window the next morning. Still, it got us up for our last morning. Craving a challenging final session, we headed for Le Jaillet, the least-visited area and home to the best off-piste skiing in Megève.

Our fun weekend in the Alps proved all too fleeting. Le Lodge with its entertaining and edgy take on a rustic ski lodge is full of surprises and certainly did more than enough to satisfy this hotel snob. All that’s left to do is convince the youngest member of this particular Smith clan that this summer she needs to swap her Disney All-Star Music Resort for an Aman Resort. Then we’ll be firmly back on track.
 

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Price per night from $456.47