Hôtel L'Armancette

Hôtel L'Armancette

The big French Alps resorts, Courchevel, Méribel, etc., are extraordinary and exhausting in equal measure. Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce, a small baroque village tucked into the Mont Blanc massif above Saint-Gervais, is none of those things. It has a 12th-century church, a handful of local shops, and the quiet that the more famous resorts traded away a long time ago. The skiing connects into the Evasion Mont Blanc area, 445km of piste shared with Megève and Les Contamines, which is serious terrain with much less of the crowds. L'Armancette was built by a Parisian owner who had spent summers in the village since childhood, on the site of the former bakery, which he rebuilt and runs on the ground floor of the hotel. Locals come for the bread most mornings, which tells you something about how naturally the hotel has landed here. The building uses Mont Blanc granite, tavaillon wood roofing, and local craftsmen throughout, and the ski lift is 100 metres from the front door. There are only 19 rooms, each individually decorated with different marbles in every bathroom and balconies facing the Dômes de Miage. The gastronomic restaurant La Table d'Armante works with produce from nearby Alpine farms, with chef Thomas Vonderscher's menus following the season closely. The bistrot Le Mont Joly handles the kind of dinner you want after a long day on the mountain. The spa has indoor and outdoor pools, two outdoor jacuzzis, sauna, and steam room, and on a clear day the terrace is one of the more extraordinary places to sit in the French Alps. The hotel also has three standalone chalets nearby on the Plateau de la Croix at 1,450 metres, with private chef, concierge, and housekeeping for those who want complete privacy. Open year round, and very much worth considering in summer when the hiking is exceptional, the village is at its quietest, and the mountains look entirely different without snow. The short version: For people who want serious mountains and a seriously good hotel without any of the performance that comes with the more famous French resorts. Geneva is 90 minutes away.