The best way to do the Alps, with champagne on tap, amazing food and perfect ski runs
Combining service worthy of The White Lotus with facilities straight out of Succession, Chalet Inoko in Val d’Isere high in the Alps is among the most spectacularly opulent ski destinations in the world, says Adam Bloodworth
“Just say yes,” Armond, the long-suffering hotel manager in the inaugural season of The White Lotus, demands of his staff as guests check-in for their holiday of a lifetime. “Just smile and say yes.” That satire on luxury was often exaggerated – staff don’t often defecate in guests’ suitcases, at least not to my knowledge – but the service principle will be familiar to anyone who’s ever stayed at the sort of property so posh that it boasts its own scent.
You’ve really got to push your luck not hear an immediate ‘yes’, an approach true of a stay with luxe ski chalet operators Purple Ski. Last season they allowed a guest to fly in their own personal mattress; anything to ensure you’re match fit for the slopes after a night on the schnapps. Another time, a member of staff pushed through a heaving nightclub to relieve a guest of their ski boots, delivering evening shoes after they got too carried away on kir royales and let the afternoon slip into night. Why bother going home to change when someone will bring the pearls to you?
And yet, checking into Purple Ski’s Chalet Iona in Val d’Isere in the Alps, I was surprised when I made a request and was not immediately be told “yes”. We’d been fantasising over Alpine cliches like cheese fondue, and had requested from our private chef to eat the melted bovine biproduct for dinner that evening. But Pierre, who’s been cooking for royalty and the A-List for thirty years, wasn’t into the idea. “It’s not gastronomically interesting.” Our chef was much cleverer about food than us and immune to plebbishly ordinary things like melted cheese.
Read more: 11 things to know about Val d’Isere
Ordinary is not the word to describe anything about Chalet Inoko or Val d’Isere, other than its guests and their sub-par fondue demands (good news, we realised Pierre wouldn’t know if we ate it on the slopes at lunchtime so everyone ended up happy). Like all good chalets, Inoko is invisible to anyone without the front door key, cloaked halfway up a mountain in a mess of fir trees, its driveway a sufficient amount of twists and turns upwards from town so as to prohibit onlookers. From the hot-tub on the balcony you get the opposite effect; the village dating back to the 1600s sprawled promiscuously in front of us.
Not that we went: why would you when you have a decent sound system, floor-to-ceiling glass windows onto the valley and an entertaining space big enough for fourteen guests and ten staff to get comfy? After a day on the slopes there was further intrepid exploration to do in Chalet Inoko. There is an indoor pool, sauna, cinema room and lounge with a floor plan big enough for every Val d’Isere local to take a snooze on if they laid down side-by-side. When we explored we took glasses of the unlimited (and very decent) white wine, red wine and champagne. We got so spoiled that by the end of the holiday we were upset when the staff poured us flutes of Veuve Cliquot instead of Taittinger.
It’s unnerving how quickly you can get used to this service. My friends and I decided we’d better go skiing before we started demanding croissants with our names baked into the tops
Staff silently wait for guests to rise; I popped into the dining area the first morning and my bedroom had been relaid minutes later with machine-like precision (don’t leave anything private out on the sides unless you want it seen by chalet staff, one of my friends very quickly realised). On the first day the service was unnerving but it’s even more discombobulating how quickly you can get used to service like this. My friends and I decided we’d better go skiing before we started demanding croissants with our names baked into the tops.
You mightn’t be surprised to know that blacked-out Mercs are parked on the drive and staff pack your equipment for you. I considered lifting my feet up and asking the team to place them into my skis too; perhaps they could also slide down the mountain for me? I had begun to question everything I thought I valued. Now I understand why celebrities can be such assholes.
We supposed that we’d better do some skiing. Val d’Isere is increasingly the place to go. The Alps town has always upkept a reputation as a serious skier’s resort, with an challenging selection of red and black runs, but at 1,850 metres above sea level and with 60 percent of the skiing above 2,500 metres, it is more immune to the effects of climate change than nearby Alps resorts like Meribel and Val Thorens. It’s where the ski pros go on holiday: former Ski Sunday presenter and Olympian Graham Bell was knocking back Alps staple beer peche in apres hangout Rosee Blanche, a wonderful spot to watch the sun descend over the foot of the slope leading from La Folie Douce, where live saxoponists riff on radio-friendly dance songs and dancers wearing completely inappropriate outfits entertain groups of families keeping warm by cutting shapes on table tops.
New for 2024, a faster gondola to reach the Pisaillas Glacier, ascending 3,185 metres to get you to that Kodak moment at the top in under seven minutes. Airelles Val d’Isère, at the foot of the slopes, has an imaginative new Italian menu, not that they need PR to generate interest; this restaurant is one of the oldest in town. Inside, black and white photos of the venue in the 1940s celebrate the restaurant’s halcyon days as a nightclub. Sit outside for lunch with panoramas of all levels of skier colliding at the base of the slopes. Resort staple Les Fils à Maman is opening an on-slope outpost in an old ski chalet serving a nostalgic menu of mountain classics (finally, fondue). If you can’t bear the wait then make the most of the resort’s First Tracks scheme on opening weekend between 30 November and 1 December, when ski passes are priced at the reduced cost of 61 Euros per day (the season runs through until 4 May 2025, late for the Alps).
Or don’t ski at all. Just sit in Chalet Inoko and drink champagne while your every whim is catered for. Such is the luxury of being a member of the elite set.
Visit Val d’Isere yourself
A seven-night stay at Purple Ski’s Chalet Inoko, Val d’Isere in the Alps starts from 35,870 on a catered basis for up to twelve guests. For more information and to book visit purpleski.com; Oxygene Ski (oxygene.ski) arranged Adam’s ski hire and the Val d’Isere tourist office (valdisere.com) assisted with his ski pass.
Read more: Skiing with the royal family’s ski instructor in Meribel, high in the Alps