Straight Up: La Mourra, Val d’Isère

The French ski resort of Val d’Isère has had a bad rap of late: earlier this year, tabloids reported that “boozy British skiers” have turned the once-chic Alpine destination into “Magaluf on ice”. But away from the bargain bars on the high street there are some phenomenally classy drinking establishments: La Mourra being the newest arrival. Opened in December and part of the same family as the resort’s popular five-star spa hotel Le Blizzard, La Mourra is a collection of four new luxury chalets designed to feel like a private alpine village. The chalets, which have between five and seven bedrooms plus a swimming pool, sauna and cinema room each, are connected via underground tunnels (all the better to avoid that cold white stuff falling from the sky), which also lead to the central hub: a restaurant and lounge bar.
With rates starting from €29,500 per week in the low season, La Mourra’s chalets are reserved for the top one per cent, but the bar and restaurant are open to all and, despite the high-flying clientele, have a relaxed ambience that immediately makes you feel at ease. Rich wood cladding and a preponderance of striking designer lighting give the place a warm glow: sink into a plush red sofa or perch atop a brushed-gold bar stool and admire the curvaceous mirrored bar fitting that echoes the mountains outside.

The restaurant serves Japanese-inspired dishes such as black cod with miso sauce and entrecote with wasabi and eryngii mushrooms, and the cocktail list has a similar pan-Asian twist. My date ordered a Tokyo Mary; as the name suggests, a spicier, jucier, less coagulated version of the classic. I chose the Amaroska: a strong version of an espresso martini but made with bourbon, Patron XO and Drambuie plus the welcome sweet addition of amaretto. Serves are large enough to justify their €18 price tag; and at 1850m above sea level their effects are amplified.

Bar staff are plentiful and attentive, hovering in their chequered waistcoats to ask whether mademoiselle might like some more edamame, a dessert
perhaps. The cocktails were ample sustenance though: I tried the Old Jammy, an expensive-tasting mix of cognac, orange marmalade, vanilla, cinnamon and chocolate bitters, followed by the Old Cuban (subtitled le mojito n’a qu’à bien se tenir: “the mojito had better watch its back”) which was, as promised, better than any mojito I’ve tasted thanks to the addition of angostura and champagne in place of soda.

Fellow clientele were smart English, French and Turkish families residing in the chalets, plus Hattila, an enormous but well-tempered golden retriever. Don’t expect any sign of the aforementioned raucous partying – these serious skiers are keen to catch the first lifts, so the place emptied out before midnight. And given the luxuriously cosseting chalets awaiting at the end of those tunnels, we don’t blame them.
Source: Telegraph