St Moritz: A Rolls-Royce of a ski town

Summer-loving British tourists first went to this mountain village in winter as a dare 150 years ago. They never looked back, and Lesley Woit can see why

A full-length sable passes by with a whoosh. The gentle babble of French, Italian and local Romansch hangs in the air. As I step from the little red train sparkling in the January sun, a liveried chauffeur offers me a gloved hand. With a heel click and a smile, I am whisked, along with my skis and rucksack, into a car previously used to drive a lady to church on the occasional Sunday.

It's jackpot city riding through St Moritz in a Rolls-Royce Phantom once owned by the Queen, another win-win in a town where wintersports were born on the back of a wager. It was autumn 1864 when hotelier Johannes Badrutt made a bet with his British summer guests that they would enjoy ample Engadin sunshine if they dared come back in winter. Back they came, again and again. Snow and glamour – together forever.

I'm despondent about leaving my Phantom, but thrilled to be deposited into the fairy-tale world of Badrutt's Palace. Built by the son of Johannes Badrutt, the Palace lobby is known as the catwalk of St Moritz. Depending on the time of day, living models range from genteel aristos to high-octane glamour pusses. A Rafael here, a Madonna there, in former times, people stayed so long that they travelled with their own furniture, some of which decorates the hotel today. These corridors are steeped in Old World excess: an elephant at a birthday party stuck in the front door, a Rolls-Royce left in lieu of paying a bill; half a million Swiss francs lavished on New Year's Eve decorations. Today, more than 500 staff tend 157 rooms that have welcomed stars from Hitchcock to Hepburn.

Where there's fun there must be games. While Badrutt delivered sunshine (the tourist office has been known to "guarantee" more than 300 days of sunshine a year), visiting Brits pursued snowy pastimes, the dicier the better. Enter, the Cresta toboggan run, where riders reach 140kmph (87mph) as noses scrape face-first over, above and through the ice; the bob, whose natural ice track is the world's oldest and has seen two Olympic Games; and more benignly, ice skating, bandy (now hockey) and curling: it was probably an early Scottish winter guest who sent the first four pairs of curling stones to Johannes Badrutt. Skiing came later.

In modern St Moritz, all these amusements are still on the menu. I start with the bob. Anyone can sign up for a hair-raising experience at the world's oldest bobsleigh club: SFr250 (£165) includes a photo, a certificate, and a St Moritz-style start: a courage-infusing glass of bubbly swilled in Gunter Sachs Lodge. Sachs, famous for his playboy antics and his marriage to Brigitte Bardot, was a fixture on the track. Raising a glass, I consider what an open-top sleigh feels like at 135kph, Santa on speed. "Keep your head down," said a bystander. "Have fun. And never let go." With the pilot in front, the two passengers squish in behind, behelmeted and twitchy. The announcer wishes me bonne route, wellwishers whoop, the brakeman runs, pushes, slots in behind and we're away.

Built in 1897 for amateur athletes and sozzled bob vivants, this tube of speed has heard thousands of punters, as well as toned Olympians, cry for joy as the bob careers down the track, but I concentrate on keeping command of my bowels: 40km, 50, 60 … 70, 80 90 …. My ears are roaring and the whiplash is full-body. Within seconds I am thrashed by 4Gs of pressure. I stop breathing long before turn 13, "Gunter Sachs Corner". Barely a minute later I'm clutching my "Bobbaptism" certificate in one clammy hand and my neck in the other, full of endorphins and respect for the pioneers of wacky winter sports.

I've earned a good lunch. That means skis on to head for La Marmite, the mid-mountain HQ of chef Reto Mathis and all things truffle. In the new Fat Monk room, we are surrounded by stuffed marmots, Reto's favourite. "They sleep for half a year, wake up and mate for two months and eat for another six," Reto says. "In the next life I want to be a marmot."

Reto co-founded the St Moritz Gourmet Festival 15 years ago. This year, in honour of the resort's 150th anniversary, he selected Angela Hartnett to lead the charge of nine international Michelin-anointed chefs who'll cook their magic around town in late January. Three hours and several courses of truffle pizza, succulent venison and chocolate pudding later, I fall out of the door, clicking my bonus ballast into my bindings and sliding downhill on to Corviglia – the ski area directly above St Moritz – faster than ever.

If anything is as entertaining as the bountiful array of hairless dogs and furry coats this legendary resort attracts, it is its wide-open slopes, as well groomed as their patrons. Nearly 90 per cent of the runs are graded beginner or intermediate. Laced over four main peaks, St Moritz does for the average skier what Coco Chanel did for women – makes them look fabulous.

I roll from lunch into an area stretching to 3,057m, high above tree line on ideal sun-soaked south- and east-facing slopes. Thanks to snow storms that pounded in from the Adriatic earlier in the week, and St Moritz's preponderance of fur over freeriders, I trace tracks of shin-deep powder over the rolling splendour of the 1948 Olympic Downhill run. My own slice of heaven in the tracks of ski gods.

There is scarcely a queue all week. Skiing features low on the list for contemporary St Moritz beau monde, after shopping (Chanel, Gucci, you name it), spa treatments (try the Palace's oxygen facial – all the ladies are doing it), taking tea and Engadine nut-torte at Hanselmann's or, depending on the week, watching snow polo, skijoring or horse racing on the frozen lake at the White Turf, listening to the classical music festival, or dining round the palate-pleasing Gourmet Festival.

Near the 15th-century San Gian church, lives one of the oldest wintersports clubs in the world. Established in 1885, it remains practically unchanged in 130 years. An epic, natural-ice-lined, bone-busting test of masculinity and bravado, the Cresta Run delivers more than 125kph all taken in from a prone, head-first perspective.

"You need the stomach for it," explained Rolf Sachs, Cresta Vice President and son of the late Gunter Sachs, from his London studio. "The Cresta is a gentlemen's club. Some are very competitive, others take it easy. Basically it is an agglomeration of wonderful friends – a vast array of people, from the local butcher to dukes and royals from many nationalities," Rolf said. "Like every sport, you need to practise, practise, practise. It's the old Olympic maxim. The important thing is to participate."

Unless you're a girl, of course. Ladies are welcomed on the track only one day per year, so I head back to the comfort of the lavish Kulm Hotel. Home of the original Badrutt bet and another of St Moritz's five-star grandes dames, the Kulm retains its Cresta cred: downstairs in the Sunny Bar, the plus-four brigade are necking some post-practice glasses.

No rest for the wickedly lucky. This evening, one of the highlights of the Gourmet Festival is dinner, courtesy of three-Michelin star Kyoto chef Yoshihiro Takahashi in the Carlton Hotel. From bohemian to sybarite, the all-suites, all a'glitter Carlo Rampazzi-designed Carlton Hotel is tough to beat. In its grand Romanoff Room corks pop, crystal tinkles and a fragrant feast of sea urchin, lobster, bream and delicate sake form many candle-lit courses, a fittingly cosmopolitan way to ring in St Moritz's sesquicentennial.

From backwater to global brand in 150 years, this is one Rolls-Royce of a ski town. You can bet on it.

Getting there

The closest airport is Zurich (around three hours by rail or road), served by a number of airlines from the UK, including Swiss (0845 601 0956; swiss.com), British Airways, (0844 493 0787; ba.com) and easyJet (0843 104 5000; easyjet.com).

Staying there

Badrutt's Palace's Winter Adrenaline package costs from SFr2,760 (£1,823) for a single room or and SFr3,990 (£2,636) per double, and includes a three-night stay plus three evening meals in either Le Restaurant or Chesa Veglia (both excluding drinks), a ski pass for the region, and transfers to and from the ski lift, a heli-skiing trip with guide, a sledge run down Muottas Muragl including sledge hire, and a bobsleigh run (00 41 81 837 1000; badruttspalace.com).

"The Bet" special at the Carlton Hotel includes a ride in a bob taxi on the Olympic bob run, curling, and a Cresta run beginners' course for men. It costs from SFr3,420 (£2,260)pp including four nights' accommodation in a suite or junior suite, with buffet breakfast, a traditional massage for women and SFr100 (£66)pp per day for food and drink in the various restaurants (00 41 81 836 70 00; tschuggenhotelgroup.ch).

The Kulm Hotel Bob Run packages start at SFr1,035 (£684)pp and include two nights' half board, one bob taxi ride, including a diploma and the Olympic Bob Run pin, and one massage. Cresta Run packages are also available (00 41 81 836 80 00; kulm.com).

More information

myswitzerland.com

stmoritz.ch