Le Grand Bellevue is Gstaad Personified

Gstaad. It’s Gstill Gstupendous. The pronunciation of the word alone seems to tell you something important about the place — a knowing little shrug of a consonant. Shhhtaaad. It is an impossible word to shout at the top of your lungs. Hushed as a snow-cloaked valley. As soft and light as baby cashmere.

Talking of which: I am trying desperately hard to avoid the overused buzzword “quiet luxury” in relation to the village, because even buzzwords are too noisy. But Gstaad does combine those two things with natural aplomb. The most famous place in Gstaad, for example, is also, by necessity, the least famous — the Eagle Ski Club, which is cloaked in a sort of Alpine omerta. It is, unless you have clomped merrily into its oofy atmosphere following a swoop down the Wasserngrat, one of the last unknown unknowns of hospitality. One simply doesn’t know what one doesn’t know about the place.

The quietest (and loveliest) hotel in Gstaad, meanwhile, is surely Le Grand Bellevue — a sort of spirit animal for the town, which sits in a stretch of private park away from the main boulevard. Fun and yet understated. Is it possible for a riot to be discreet? The hotel was built in 1912 in a sort of high Alpine style — a steep hipped roof, a pleasing symmetry; the floors stacked high and proud like a good strudel in vanilla-cream-custard tones.

It is a place of warmth and calm, and stepping into its lobby is a bit like returning to see an old friend (albeit one who’s done rather well for himself and now wears a lot of Brunello shawl collars) at their handsome country house. Roaring fires, deep sofas, thick carpets — and, best of all, a tiny hot chocolate with a little accompanying biscuit, served up while you are carried through the painless check in. Later that evening, on deep sofas by the fire in the well-stocked library, a handsome jazz band played the classics as blossom-soft snow settled on the window frames.

Upstairs, the rooms are similarly gorgeous — lovely woods, warm colours, and a swaddling, cosseting thickness to everything. It is exactly the sort of place one hopes for after a long day battling the blue slopes. The rooms that are attached to the circular tower at the wing of the building might come particularly recommended, their windows a 270-degree panorama out over the valley, and up towards the glowing, party-gothic spires of The Palace, the most notable feature of the Gstaad skyline. My eyes, however, were drawn to a little mountain log cabin on the edge of the hotel’s grounds, its windows orange with glowing fires, a small plume of fragrant smoke emanating from its chimney.

This, I would soon learn, is Le Petit Chalet — one of the Grand Bellevue’s most beloved restaurants, which seats just 18 around a warm, glowing hearth. It specialises in fondue in the style of the Bernese Oberland — that yellow gold on which entire economies might be built. The fondue ‘moitié-moitié is the winner here: an equal marriage of Vacherin & Gruyère, cut through with a flinty local white from nearby Chasselas.

Back inside the hotel, meanwhile, the principal restaurant, Leonard’s, pairs the heady elegance of the local cuisine with the panache of Italy— all set in an enticing, low-lit dining room. A superb risotto, ‘Le Caramelle,’ sticks particularly in the mind, with its morsels of braised veal cheek lounging over Hokkaido pumpkin and a coulis made from Lenker Bergbleu cheese. And also an apple pie, served with a dollop of glossy, off-white double cream from Gruyère. This pudding, perhaps, is the very definition of quiet luxury—that dread sentiment which the Gstaadites would simply call ‘living’. The very best ingredients from the very best place with the very best company. Plus two spoons. It is characteristically lovely.

Le Grand Bellevue, of course, translates to the big, beautiful view — a reference, I’m sure, to the striking vista from the front of the hotel out across the Bernese Alps. After ten minutes here, however, it becomes clear that the beauty runs both ways.

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