Since 1896, this palace hotel has defined the St. Moritz winter season — its tower silhouette as iconic as the Alps themselves.

To understand Badrutt's Palace, you must first understand St. Moritz — a town that invented the concept of the winter holiday and has spent the past 150 years perfecting it. The Palace, which opened in 1896 under the stewardship of Caspar Badrutt's son Johannes, is not merely a hotel in this context. It is the reason the season exists.

The building itself is a study in confident grandeur: a turreted Victorian pile that rises above the frozen lake like something from a Grimm fairy tale. Inside, the public spaces are a masterclass in the art of the grand hotel — soaring ceilings, open fireplaces, and the kind of deep-pile carpeting that muffles the world to a pleasant hum. The 157 rooms and suites have been updated without losing their essential character: warm, wood-panelled, and possessed of the particular comfort that comes from knowing that generations of the world's most demanding guests have slept here before you.

The ski-in/ski-out access is seamless — the hotel's private ski school and equipment room are models of quiet efficiency, and the Palace's ski instructors are among the most sought-after in the Engadin. After skiing, the spa complex — 1,800 square metres of pools, saunas, and treatment rooms — provides the kind of recovery that makes the following morning's early lift feel possible.

Dining options range from the formal King's Club restaurant, where the menu reads like a tour of classical European gastronomy, to the more relaxed Chesa Veglia, a 17th-century farmhouse a short walk from the hotel that serves the best pizzas and pastas in the Alps. The Palace Bar, with its nightly live music and clientele that spans royalty, rock stars, and hedge fund managers, remains one of the great social theatres of the winter season.