In person: St Moritz
Mountain feast A
sk anyone who loves skiing what the most important aspect of their holiday is and, snow aside, they are guaranteed
to tell you it’s the food. Long days on the mountains ensure big appetites at the end of the day, while even the heartiest mountain fare can be consumed, safe in the knowledge that most of it will be burnt off the next day. But as I sat with 280 other guests for a meal
of up to nine courses at the Great BMW Gourmet Finale in the Kulm Hotel, even I began to wonder just how much I could really eat. This dining extravaganza was the culmination
of the annual five-day St Moritz Gourmet Festival, which this year was a British Edition. Nine of the UK’s top Michelin-starred chefs, including Angela Hartnett, Atul Kochhar and Jason Atherton, were given a course to oversee and this was not a meal for those with small appetites or simple tastes. And as excellent as that was, the gourmet meal wasn’t even the best part of the ski resort’s celebration of some of the finest cooking Britain’s chefs had to offer. Taking place each January, the festival was originally launched in 1994 with the aim of teaming up the world’s finest chefs with the resort’s best hotel kitchens, including the Kempinski Grand Hotel de Bains and the Kulm Hotel St Moritz, to see what they come up with. The two hotels are just nine of those
who take part in the festival and each serves a five-course dinner. But there are a number of other options – for example, the Gourmet Safaris see guests chauffeured in BMWs to five of the different properties during the evening, a course served at each at the chef’s table in the kitchen. Meanwhile, the Kitchen Party in Badrutt’s Palace Hotel sees all the chefs in action again, personally handing
How to book it Supertravel offers a three-night, half-board stay at the Kulm Hotel St Moritz (
kulm.com) combining with the Gourmet Festival from £1,599pp. Included are two five-course gourmet dinners in the hotel’s K restaurant, tickets to Great BMW Gourmet Finale and a welcome bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne. Tel: 020 7204 6660,
supertravel.co.uk The 2016 festival (January 25-29) has a Yokoso Nippon theme, stmoritz-
gourmetfestival.ch
food fresh out of the pan to watching guests. Preparations are already well under way for
the 2016 festival when a Yokoso Nippon theme will mean some of Japan’s top chefs will be cooking in St Moritz from January 25-29.
Calorie cure Of course, those who were concerned about their calorie intake could always work off the excess during the day on St Moritz’s 218 miles of pistes, which are ideal for beginners and intermediates. While the Kulm Hotel, where I stayed, is not close to the skiing, there is a regular minibus service from the hotel to the funicular railway, which then takes you on to the piste, making it a fairly painless process. The Kulm Hotel also offers a number of
other attractions, including being home to the Sunny Bar, which is rich in history and acts as the meeting place for those who have tackled
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the nearby Cresta Run, a petrifying ice skeleton racing toboggan track. The hotel’s 173 rooms are luxurious and modern, without jarring with the overall hotel, which is more than 150 years old. One area where the hotel’s owners have
focused on the future is the creation of an extensive spa and wellness area, which boasts both an inside and outside pool, a sauna, steam baths and a gym, while numerous treatments and massages are available. The hotel has also invested in a refurbishment
of its Neukulm building, which means all 26 rooms and suites have been given a thorough redesign by Pierre-Yves Rochon.
Pictured 1. Kulm Hotel St Moritz 2. A mouthwatering dessert 3. Beautifully presented starter 4. 2015 guest chef Atul Kochhar
St Moritz is hailed as one of the world’s most exclusive ski resorts, but it is also home to an annual gourmet festival where guests are free to indulge, knowing they can work off the guilt the next day on the piste author: Edward Robertson
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