The Digest | New Jersey Magazine
Issue link: https://magazines.vuenj.com/i/1547572
VUENJ.COM 81 Luxury, a!er all, is partly the art of knowing when to make an entrance. And for 130 winters, Badrutt's Palace has known precisely how. Opened in 1896, the Palace belongs to an era when travel still carried a certain ceremony, when arriving somewhere was an event, and a great hotel could become a world of its own. !at feeling lingers at Badrutt's Palace. Walk through the doors on a December a"ernoon and immediately, the pace changes. A #re is burning as piano music dri"s through Le Grand Hall. A"ernoon tea arrives on porcelain. Beyond the windows, the Engadin stretches toward the mountains in shades of white and blue. Outside, St. Moritz is moving. Inside, there is nowhere else one particularly needs to be. Morning at the Palace begins quietly. !e lake below is frozen, the surrounding peaks white beneath the #rst light. Soon the village awakens. Skis appear. Cars wind toward the li"s. Tables begin #lling on the mountain. By midday, winter has become a social a$air. At Paradiso Mountain Club & Restaurant on Corviglia, lunch can easily become an a"ernoon. !ere is music, champagne, and that particular combination of Alpine air and elegant abandon that St. Moritz seems to understand better than anywhere else. Back at the Palace, a"ernoon gives way to evening. Dinner might mean the grandeur of Le Restaurant or Japanese-Peruvian dishes at La Coupole– Matsuhisa, set within what was once Europe's #rst indoor tennis hall. Or perhaps the evening begins beyond the Palace walls at Chesa Veglia, the centuries-old Engadin farmhouse acquired by the hotel in the 1930s, where timbered rooms glow against the snow outside. Later, there is King's Social House. First opened in 1963, the legendary nightspot remains part of the Palace mythology, the sort of place where dinner has a habit of becoming dancing and midnight can arrive almost unnoticed. Because in St. Moritz, the days may belong to the mountains but the nights belong to its guests. And then, Christmas arrives. If the Palace feels cinematic throughout winter, December makes the illusion complete. !e tower rises into the dark Alpine sky. Windows glow against the snow. Inside, Christmas trees, garlands, and ornaments #ll rooms already layered with more than a century of stories. e mountains became a stage.