Badrutt's Palace Hotel

Badrutt's Palace is the building most people picture when they picture St Moritz: a castellated silhouette with a single tower, opened in 1896 by the family who effectively invented Alpine winter tourism in this valley. It stands above the lake in the middle of town, and its winter season remains one of the fixed points of the European social calendar, in a way that is either the entire appeal or a reason to book elsewhere.

Rooms and suites vary widely across the building, from traditionally decorated lake-view rooms to modernised suites at the top of the house, and the older categories can feel their age relative to the price. What the hotel sells is not newness but continuity and address. Facilities include a large spa, an indoor pool, tennis and a private ski school arrangement, with the Corviglia lifts a short distance away.

Dining is unusually extensive, with a long-running Italian restaurant, a Japanese room, the King's Club nightclub and a grand dining room that still observes dress codes. Notably for an Alpine hotel of this type, Badrutt's runs a proper summer season as well as its winter one, with the Engadin's hiking, lake sailing and cycling as the draw, and it closes entirely between the two.