The luxury travel guide to Méribel, the fashion set's favourite ski resort

Situated right in the middle of France’s expansive Les Trois Vallées region in Savoie, Méribel is the perfect place to explore one of the biggest combined piste areas in the world. The resort enjoys an advantageous position between Courchevel and Val Thorens, and sees the most sunshine of the area – making it the ideal location if you enjoy a quick coffee between runs. Méribel is also one of the liveliest ski areas in the Alps, with buzzy bars and slope-side restaurants for your next fondue fix, as well as a thrumming aprés ski scene.

If you're looking to book a snow-dusted break, we highly recommend looking to these perfect pistes– here's our edit of where to stay, the restaurants to visit and the bars to hit in Méribel for 2024...

Where to stay?

The living room at Purple Ski’s Chalet Harmony

If you want to do a ski holiday the original (and best) way, you can’t go wrong with Purple Ski, which not only handpicks the finest chalets in Méribel, Courchevel and Val d’Isère, but does all of the hard work for you, from arranging your itinerary to taking care of all of the catering, the housekeeping and assisting with in-chalet equipment hire and fittings. Your party will also have a chauffeured minibus to transport you to and from the airport, and around the resort (helicopter transfers are also available). The concierge team will be ready to assist with restaurant reservations, ski lessons, spa treatments, childcare and activities such as paragliding, should skiing not be exhilarating enough for you.

A chef, trained in a Michelin-level kitchen, will be on hand all week to cook for you, preparing hearty breakfasts to set you up for the slopes and afternoon tea to await you on your return. Dinners begin with canapés and champagne, then guests will be seated for a four-course meal each night, which might include celery vichyssoise, cured salmon with ponzu shiitake and Hollandaise, and duck with beetroot and forest fruits. One night will be left free for you to dine out in one of the ski resort’s many classic Alpine restaurants.

Chalet Harmony’s master bedroom

New to its Méribel selection this season, the four-storey Chalet Harmony is as serene as its name suggests. It is one of the biggest chalets in the resort, and within walking distance to the centre of town. The decor is as traditionally alpine as it is possible to go without fully embracing the reindeer motifs and twee carved wooden hearts. Instead, it’s slick, modern and comfortable, with lots of pale wood. Through vast windows (especially scenic on the spa floor), you’ll be able to continually marvel at the mountains.

There are seven bedrooms in total (the chalet sleeps 15 guests). Each is snug and cosy, with wood-lined walls, tactile furnishings and cleverly designed storage space, along with a piste-showcasing balcony. The 70-square-metre master penthouse, which takes up the entire top floor, is likely to require a shotgun contest for its allocation.

Chalet Harmony’s pool

The staff are always on hand to whip up cocktails, pour some champagne or stock the cinema room with snacks ahead of your chosen screening. Perfect for whiling away an afternoon after a morning on the slopes, the indoor pool area has a mountain-facing hot tub, a gym, a sauna and a steam room completing the spa suite. Even the boot room is overflowing with treats – guests are encouraged to hit the slopes armed with a Mars bar ready for those wobbly moments on a red run.

A seven-night, catered stay at Chalet Harmony starts from about £35,855 (₹3,770,228 approx.)

The Beefbar terrace at Le Coucou

If you'd prefer to stay in a hotel – and one with ski-in, ski-out privileged piste access at that – check in to Le Coucou, the brainchild of the French fashion family who gave us Naf Naf. The daughters of the dynasty have turned their attention to hotels, with a little help from star designer Pierre Yovanovitch in this case. The modern take on a classic alpine chalet has irreverent design details throughout, including snowflakes on the carpets, teddy-shaped armchairs, grandfather clocks with shoes on and seriously tactile sheepskin chairs. Terracotta is Yovanovitch’s paint colour of choice, and it works surprisingly well here.

The ski-room has charming staff who’ll help you get in and out of your boots gracefully – its location at 1,650 metres and right on the piste is unbeatable. And even if you don’t want to hit the powder, the view from your terrace, out onto the mountains and chair lifts, will mean you’re in on the action. There are self-contained chalets within the hotel, with doors that open straight onto the piste.

Après ski activities are likely to revolve around food: afternoon tea featuring a pancake trolley circulating the room awaits in the lounge, or you can address your post-skiing calorie deficit at Beefbar, famous the world over, from Mykonos to Monaco, for its 50:50 butter-to-potato-ratio mash and supersize steaks.

Where to eat

Ski up (or hop on the horse-drawn sleigh) to Le Clos Bernard near the altiport for some vin chaud on the deckchairs outside, or warm up indoors with tartiflette, tuna tataki and huge hunks of Wagyu grilled on the open fire. It also serves sharing boards of charcuterie in the unlikely event you're not absolutely famished after a morning on the slopes.

If you’ve made it as far as Courchevel within the Trois Vallées runs, stop for refuelling at La Cave des Creux, a former cheese-ripening cellar and sheepfold at 2,112 metres, with an outdoor fire so you can enjoy the views of the valleys and Mont Blanc without worrying about the temperature. Or ski down to Adray Télébar in the heart of Méribel, near the Rond Point, which serves a creamy veal and mushroom signature dish, enormous omelettes and huge vats of chips for every table.

And if you love mushrooms, there's no better place to pay homage to all things funghi than at Le Cèpe, which works tasty toadstools into everything from the apéritif to a mousse-textured chestnut soup and a dish of stone-cooked fish sourced in a local river; even the sugar served with your coffee will be mushroom-shaped (and the chocolate mushroom-flavoured).

Where to learn

Ski and boot hire can be arranged through White Storm Méribel, which boasts very helpful staff as well as every type of ski, boot and board you could wish – they’ll fit you properly so you can hit the slopes looking and feeling confident.

Speaking of the slopes, when it comes to instructors, there’s a great group for every level. If you’re a complete novice, try ESF, which is also a good option for children and teenagers; if you’re an intermediate hoping to hone your skills, book with New Gen for their private lessons and off-piste guiding. For those who consider themselves masters of powder, Parallel Lines are your people: their all-terrain courses will test your carving, mogul and steep slope skills.

Where to après ski

La Folie Douce is an excellent spot for daytime clubbing in the mountains

If you’re more about the après than the ski, you’ll be pleased to hear that Méribel has its very own La Folie Douce, which has been facilitating daylight raves in ski boots for more than 50 years now, complete with barely visible daytime fireworks, dramatic moments when anybody orders a jeroboam of rosé and live performers strutting their stuff from midday onwards.

The show is obviously the main spectacle, but the food in the La Fruitière section is really rather good too, with the menu covering everything from classic dishes such as tartiflette, croque monsieurs and French onion soup to burrata salads, truffle pizzas and burgers with raclette cheese.

There are various bars in town and on the slopes, including Jacks, which has live music, a piste-facing terrace and milkshakes if you want to avoid the hard stuff. And if you haven’t passed out from your 4pm party and want to keep going into the night, head to L’Abreuvoir in the centre of town (near the tourist office) for some lively après après-ski.

This article first appeared in harpersbazaar.com/uk in February 2024.

Featured image credit -  ARTUR DEBAT // GETTY IMAGES

Also read: Our pick of the most luxurious hotels on Koh Samui

                 The most fashion-forward hotels across the globe