L'Alpaga, a Beaumier hotel ★★★★★

A hamlet on the slopes above Megeve

L'Alpaga is built as a hamlet rather than a single building. Ten chalets and a group of farmhouse-style houses are spread across the hillside above Megeve, linked by paths and turned towards the Mont Blanc massif and the Aravis range. The scale is deliberately domestic: there is no grand lobby, and arriving feels closer to reaching a private estate than checking into a resort hotel.

Rooms, suites and private chalets

Accommodation runs from intimate rooms to family suites and standalone chalets that can be taken in full. The interiors were shaped by the Saint Lazare studio with the architects Charles & Co, who worked a palette of forest green, grey blue, earth brown and burgundy against marble, burnished leather and heavy fabrics. It is a warmer, more collected register than the polished chalet look, and it means a family can spread out across a whole house while still using the hotel services.

The table and the bar

Le Bistrot de L'Alpaga keeps the cooking traditional and unfussy, the kind of menu that works after a day on the snow rather than competing with it. Le Bar de L'Alpaga handles the hours on either side, from a first coffee to a late drink by the fire. Both stay on the informal side, which suits a property where guests are coming back down from the mountain rather than dressing for dinner.

A spa that faces the massif

The spa is built in stone and wood and opens straight onto the view. Inside there is a steam room, a sauna, a Swedish bath, a plunge pool with massage jets, three treatment rooms and a fitness room. Outside, a heated pool looks directly at Mont Blanc. Treatments are built around the Susanne Kaufmann altitude range, with rituals aimed specifically at recovery after a day of skiing or a long hike.

Skiing in winter, walking in summer

The hotel sits on the mountain side of Megeve rather than in its centre, with the resort opening onto both groomed runs and a generous amount of off-piste terrain. In summer the same setting turns to hiking, and the valley is one of the few places in the Alps where a hot-air balloon flight is a standard morning outing. The cobbled village centre and its long-standing food scene stay close at hand.

Why we selected it

L'Alpaga earns its place because it delivers five-star Megeve without the formality that usually comes with it. Dogs are welcome, families are properly housed, the spa would justify the stay on its own, and the chalets suit a group travelling together. It answers the two things our readers ask of a grand alpine address: a real view of Mont Blanc, and the freedom to treat the place as their own.