Badrutt’s Palace: discovering another side to St Moritz’s grande dame

We have spent many summers in the Swiss mountains with our three young children. The combination of clean air, outdoor life and pleasantly cool weather is hard to beat. Yet we had never had the chance to visit St Moritz. So when the opportunity arose to spend 24 hours at Badrutt’s Palace – the grande dame at the heart of the resort – we jumped at it.

For all its scale – the site extends over roughly six acres – one of the Palace’s charms is how intimate and woven into St Moritz’s town centre it feels. Walk along Via Serlas and the high-end boutiques suddenly give way to the hotel’s recessed driveway. Vintage Rolls-Royces wait beside the revolving door as immaculately liveried staff quietly choreograph guests’ comings and goings.

Opened in 1896 by Caspar Badrutt, the hotel has long been a playground for the glitterati; Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn and Alfred Hitchcock – who even has a suite named after him – were all regulars. As we were whisked to a table in the gardens overlooking the glittering lake on a warm August afternoon, a glass of Ruinart and a plate of petits fours felt like a fitting start to what would prove to be a stay where we felt wonderfully spoilt.

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Why stay here?

As tempting as it was to stay put beside the lake, it was time to head to our room in the Serlas Wing. This 25-room-and-suite addition is across Via Serlas from the main Palace and is reached by a private underground walkway, which also conveniently connects guests directly to the luxury shopping on the street above.

Where the main building revels in Belle Époque grandeur, the Serlas Wing is calm and contemporary: dark oak, natural stone, Loro Piana fabrics and floor-to-ceiling windows. Our room felt beautifully considered rather than ostentatious, with an exceptionally comfortable bed, crisp white linen and a superb bathroom complete with a decidedly modern Japanese high-tech toilet.

Despite its scale, you never feel like just another room number. Hundreds of staff work across the hotel during the summer season, which perhaps explains the extraordinary level of attention. Badrutt’s was also named winner of The World’s 50 Best Hotels’ Art of Hospitality Award in 2026 – an accolade that felt entirely justified after our stay.

Grand hotels can often feel daunting with small children in tow, but Badrutt confidently avoids that trap. The classical service is warm rather than stuffy, and our children were greeted just as enthusiastically as we were.

Eating and drinking

You would need much longer than 24 hours to work through the dining options. Six restaurants operate during the summer season, ranging from Mediterranean cooking at La Diala and French cuisine at Le Relais to Swiss dishes at Patrizier Stuben and Pizzeria Heuboden in the historic Chesa Veglia. Then there is Le Grand Hall, the hotel’s famously glamorous “living room of St Moritz”.

Our first lunch, however, was at Paradiso, Badrutt’s mountainside restaurant high above St Moritz. We climbed into one of the hotel’s vintage Rolls-Royces – one in the Palace fleet was previously owned by Queen Elizabeth II – and were chauffeur-driven to the chairlift. The children were spellbound, as were we. The smell of old leather and engine oil, the heavy doors and the view of St Moritz slipping past the windows only added to the sense of occasion.

From the top of the lift it is a gently undulating 10-minute walk to Paradiso, whose south-facing terrace enjoys an uninterrupted panorama across the Engadin mountains. The restaurant majors on Alpine comfort food alongside more international favourites, while its extensive cellar runs to more than 500 wines. After cycling over the Flüela Pass that morning, I needed little persuading to settle in for a long lunch in the sun.

That evening we ate Italian food at Chesa Veglia before retreating to Le Grand Hall for a cocktail. Our children were far too excited to sleep, so joined us for extravagant hot chocolates instead. They weren’t exactly on their best behaviour, but nobody – guests or staff – seemed remotely bothered. It summed up rather neatly how Badrutt’s manages to feel grand without ever becoming stiff.

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, and Badrutt’s lived up to expectations. It is served in Le Restaurant, a soaring Belle Époque dining room with vast windows overlooking Lake St Moritz and the mountains beyond. Live harp music plays as you work your way around an enormous buffet, supplemented by an à la carte menu and a dedicated children’s section.

Children are also catered for with a small play area tucked discreetly in the corner, to which ours disappeared, affording us the rare luxury of finishing our coffees in peace.

Things to do

Our summery stay continued when, after lunch, we returned to the hotel to find four e-bikes waiting outside, two equipped with children’s trailers. Around 15 minutes later we were at Lej da Staz, a small bathing lake hidden among the trees.

We parked the bikes, stripped down to our swimwear and jumped from the wooden jetty into the bracingly cold Alpine water. We changed afterwards in the surprisingly well-equipped public changing cabins before riding back to the hotel.

For a longer stay, hiking and cycling routes spread out across the Engadin directly from St Moritz, while sailing and paddleboarding can be arranged on the surrounding lakes. Back at the hotel there are also tennis and padel courts.

Palace Wellness is similarly substantial, with a 25-metre indoor infinity pool and a heated outdoor pool overlooking the lake and mountains. Completely redesigned in 2024, the outdoor pool is now the largest in St Moritz. Our children loved the jets and bubbles and would happily have remained there for the afternoon.

My 50-minute T-Shape 2 treatment was considerably more high-tech than a traditional massage, combining low-level laser therapy and bipolar radiofrequency with vacuum and deep mechanical massage. Designed to aid circulation, lymphatic flow and muscle recovery as well as offering more cosmetic benefits, it felt particularly welcome after several hours on the bike the previous day.

Crucially for parents, Palazzino Kids Club is complimentary for hotel guests aged three to 12. Our children usually tolerate kids’ clubs rather than embrace them; here, when we returned to collect them a few hours later, we found them still busily absorbed in activities and playing. They did not want to leave, which is about the strongest endorsement I can give.

Older children have the Palace Arcade next door, a separate hangout packed with games consoles and arcade machines.

The verdict

We arrived half-expecting Badrutt’s Palace to feel vast and impersonal: a grand old hotel trading a little too heavily on its history, with the formality and tired interiors that can sometimes accompany this level of heritage. We could not have been more wrong.

There is certainly no shortage of grandeur, but underneath it is a hotel that feels warm, remarkably unstuffy and, perhaps most surprisingly, enormous fun.

Summer seems to soften St Moritz without sacrificing any of its glamour. You can spend the morning cycling through forests, swim in an Alpine lake in the afternoon and still be drinking a perfectly made cocktail beneath a carved Belle Époque ceiling that evening. More importantly for us, Badrutt’s combines old-world polish with a genuinely relaxed attitude to families.

After years spent on the other side of the Flüela Pass, we had finally discovered a different side of St Moritz. Twenty-four hours wasn’t nearly long enough; next time, we’ll be staying longer.

Fergus was a guest of Badrutt’s Palace; badruttspalace.com