Hotel Gasthof Post

Hotel Gasthof Post

Lech am Arlberg is the quieter, more aristocratic side of Austrian ski culture, a village of 1,500 permanent residents that has been drawing the European establishment for decades and has managed, through some combination of geography and discretion, to remain largely itself in the process. The Gasthof Post has been at the centre of the village since 1937, when Erich Moosbrugger bought the old post house and began what is now four generations of the same family running one of the more quietly authoritative hotels in the Alps. It has been a Relais & Châteaux member for over forty years, which tells you something about the standard it has held and the kind of guest it has attracted. The 46 rooms and suites are individually appointed, hand-painted furniture, carved wood, antiques, hunting trophies, and tiled stoves in some rooms, the whole interior carrying the particular warmth of an inn that became a luxury hotel without losing its original register. The Post-Stuben, the Michelin-starred restaurant, is where chef Michael Volcanjsek applies serious technique to the regional larder. The Kutscherstube handles the more traditional Austrian fare, and the terrace in good weather is the right place for a long lunch or homemade strudel in the afternoon. The spa runs to a 15-metre outdoor panorama pool with mountain views, a salt steam bath, sauna, grotto, and a treatment menu built around Swiss alpine protocols from Cellap Laboratoire, which is as serious as it sounds. In winter this is one of the great ski hotels of the Arlberg, with the slopes a short walk across the bridge and a boot room team that handles the rest. In summer the village empties and the hotel becomes something quieter, hiking trails, the Arlberg landscape, and the particular pleasure of a mountain inn without the season's pressure. The short version: Forty-six rooms in a family-owned former post house in the centre of Lech, Relais & Châteaux for over forty years, with a Michelin-starred restaurant, a panorama outdoor pool, and the kind of deep Austrian hospitality that the Moosbrugger family has been refining since 1937.