Hotel Chesa Grischuna

Old Swiss charm and cosy room. Great location for the ski lifts up the mountain.

Wonderful historic hotel which has cleverly avoided the lure of "modernisation" which has killed the atmosphere of so many other once great Swiss hotels: no cheap plastic furniture or supermarket music blaring from loudspeakers here! Instead, wonderfully warm, wood-panelled interiors with artwork everywhere you look, all the way down to the bespoke crockery and cutlery. Delicious high-end food worth its 14 points in the Guide Millau and an impeccable service round off the wonderful experience!

With great anticipation, we booked a weekend at the Chesa Grischuna. A house with a long and glamorous past in new hands to revive the glamour of days gone by. After all, crowned heads and Hollywood stars used to dine and sleep in the Chesa Grischuna. We were greeted by a house with a patina that had settled over everything over the years without looking dingy. Staff who operates close to the guest but seems somewhat unguided. Rooms with original furnishings from the 30s with newer, meanwhile aged bathrooms but good beds. And a breakfast that was good but complicated to order. A place for lovers of historic houses, then, for whom tradition and patina are not a flaw but an expectation. Even if we didn't feel anything of Greta Garbo, Gene Kelly, or King Charles III, we were at least taken back to our childhood by the wall paintings of Alois Carigiet. So why the low rating? Past and patina aside, CHF 490 per night is too much for a room in the Chesa Grischuna without any ifs and buts. The new owners will have to go over the books again. Not only will we not come back a second time, but also no recommendation a first time. It's a shame because the house and its staff deserve it.