Switzerland Luxury Hotels
May 15, 2017, 6:24 am
#46
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: England
Posts: 1,361
Would be a nice side business for me :-)
I am glad you enjoyed Beau Rivage Palace. I think you stayed in the same room type that we stayed in, just one floor up. The picture with the lightning is incredible.
Where did you eat? We just tried the Brasserie - thought that was perfectly fine, although unremarkable. Did you try Anne-Sophie Pic's place?
I am glad you enjoyed Beau Rivage Palace. I think you stayed in the same room type that we stayed in, just one floor up. The picture with the lightning is incredible.
Where did you eat? We just tried the Brasserie - thought that was perfectly fine, although unremarkable. Did you try Anne-Sophie Pic's place?
Regarding food, we tried their Japanese restaurant, in-room dining and breakfast. A few years ago I had been to every 3 and 2 Michelin star restaurant in England and just found that 80-90% of them disappoint me, so Anne-Sophie Pic's place at ~£500 per head wasn't going to be something I'd take a punt on. I met her at the opening night in Four Seasons Ten Trinity and thought her food was very good, but not £1000 worth of goodness. The Japanese restaurant was five worse than a chain like Sticks'n'Sushi and twice as expensive. In room dining was just awful, with food that I'd expect to be served up in Tesco. Whilst I appreciate Swiss waiters earn more than English CEOs, the cost of some of the food made Singapore look cheap, but at least Singapore delivered something edible. Breakfast wasn't bad; certainly better than The Dolder Grand.
Luckily there's a lot of reasonable restaurants even walking distance from the hotel, so life goes on.
May 15, 2017, 8:31 am
#48
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: England
Posts: 1,361
They tried a different approach this time. During turndown, they pulled the thin curtains, but then didn't lower the blinds (or show us that they could be lowered or even that they existed), ergo at 6am all the light came in and woke me up. There are about 4 layers of protection to prevent light coming in, so on the second night, now knowing this existed, we lowered them all and ended up waking up late as the room was completely dark.
May 17, 2017, 3:20 am
#49
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: England
Posts: 1,361
Next up: The Dolder Grand.
This is the first time I've ever rejected a room in a hotel. Sure, I've moved rooms once or twice before, such as noise in Aman Venice, AC sounding like a wrecking ball in The Connaught, hating the room in Four Seasons Prague, the Apple TV not working in Beau-Rivage, The Lanesborough realising their loyalty scheme should actually act as one. Ok, so maybe more than once or twice. Yet this is the first time I've ever hated a room to the point I was considering leaving. Ok, maybe second after Gora Kadan. Ok, so I'm probably a hoteliers nightmare, but why spend so much on something that doesn’t make you happy, when the entire product is designed just for that?
I booked a Junior Suite Grand - their highest room category before Suites - that was positioned in their new, Norman Foster designed, wing. He also apparently helped give guidelines to the interior designers, but I cannot help but feel he was suffering a mental breakdown at the time. The design was like being in a vandalised IKEA store. Everything looked so cheap, the room looked so empty, you could even hear a faint echo in the vastness of nothingness that made up the design. 1300 CHF/n for this? No chance. Less than 5 minutes after being roomed, and having giving up Googling for some new religion I could quickly join to pray to a better god, we asked for to the Duty Manager to come talk to us. Coming from the pure class of Beau-Rivage to this was a new level of disappointment. I have not felt this deflated since that hot air balloon race went wrong. The chap kindly saved our entire stay, as he offered immediately to move us and we ended up in the classic part of the building in a suite, albeit one without much of a view. The room is still not my first love, but it was infinitely better than what we saw in the first instance and it meant we could restart and enjoy the property.
Sadly the food here is nothing special either, and the menus are rather limited. It started off promising, as lunch was very good, but then dinner was pretty awful in the same restaurant, followed by yet another revolting room service option. I thought it was only fair to give their 2 Michelin star restaurant, aply named The Restaurant, a go, after everyone here spoke as fondly of it as I do of complimentary hotel stays. Plus it was actually priced at a point (249 CHF for 8 courses) that didn't make me sick, and it came with the added benefit of not having to eat in their other restaurant. I could not recommend it enough; simply phenomenal on every level. It's meals like this that got me into fine dining in the first place, only for so many other restaurants to destroy it along the way. Even better, my impatience of not spending 3 hours eating a meal was helped by us asking the staff to bring it quickly. At one point I thought I was in a speed eating competition, as the moment the plate was taken away, another one was there. From ordering to finishing the meal: a mere 80 minutes. Absolutely perfect. We were even welcomed by the head chef Heiko Nieder on arrival. I will now setup a petition to demand he moves to Cambridge.
Cameras are not allowed in the spa, so I did what any sensible person would do: I asked if they would let me in pre-opening to photograph it. They kindly agreed, so I got up at 5:25 to do so. I have other 300 photos to go through, so will be done with it by sometime tomorrow and will update this:
This is the first time I've ever rejected a room in a hotel. Sure, I've moved rooms once or twice before, such as noise in Aman Venice, AC sounding like a wrecking ball in The Connaught, hating the room in Four Seasons Prague, the Apple TV not working in Beau-Rivage, The Lanesborough realising their loyalty scheme should actually act as one. Ok, so maybe more than once or twice. Yet this is the first time I've ever hated a room to the point I was considering leaving. Ok, maybe second after Gora Kadan. Ok, so I'm probably a hoteliers nightmare, but why spend so much on something that doesn’t make you happy, when the entire product is designed just for that?
I booked a Junior Suite Grand - their highest room category before Suites - that was positioned in their new, Norman Foster designed, wing. He also apparently helped give guidelines to the interior designers, but I cannot help but feel he was suffering a mental breakdown at the time. The design was like being in a vandalised IKEA store. Everything looked so cheap, the room looked so empty, you could even hear a faint echo in the vastness of nothingness that made up the design. 1300 CHF/n for this? No chance. Less than 5 minutes after being roomed, and having giving up Googling for some new religion I could quickly join to pray to a better god, we asked for to the Duty Manager to come talk to us. Coming from the pure class of Beau-Rivage to this was a new level of disappointment. I have not felt this deflated since that hot air balloon race went wrong. The chap kindly saved our entire stay, as he offered immediately to move us and we ended up in the classic part of the building in a suite, albeit one without much of a view. The room is still not my first love, but it was infinitely better than what we saw in the first instance and it meant we could restart and enjoy the property.
Sadly the food here is nothing special either, and the menus are rather limited. It started off promising, as lunch was very good, but then dinner was pretty awful in the same restaurant, followed by yet another revolting room service option. I thought it was only fair to give their 2 Michelin star restaurant, aply named The Restaurant, a go, after everyone here spoke as fondly of it as I do of complimentary hotel stays. Plus it was actually priced at a point (249 CHF for 8 courses) that didn't make me sick, and it came with the added benefit of not having to eat in their other restaurant. I could not recommend it enough; simply phenomenal on every level. It's meals like this that got me into fine dining in the first place, only for so many other restaurants to destroy it along the way. Even better, my impatience of not spending 3 hours eating a meal was helped by us asking the staff to bring it quickly. At one point I thought I was in a speed eating competition, as the moment the plate was taken away, another one was there. From ordering to finishing the meal: a mere 80 minutes. Absolutely perfect. We were even welcomed by the head chef Heiko Nieder on arrival. I will now setup a petition to demand he moves to Cambridge.
Cameras are not allowed in the spa, so I did what any sensible person would do: I asked if they would let me in pre-opening to photograph it. They kindly agreed, so I got up at 5:25 to do so. I have other 300 photos to go through, so will be done with it by sometime tomorrow and will update this:
Would I return? Yes, but only if staying in a suite.
Last edited by MacMyDay; May 17, 2017 at 3:26 am
May 17, 2017, 4:26 am
#50
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 361
Again, incredible photos. I particularly like your picture with the sunrise over Lake Zurich.
What was your issue with room service? Room service menus at Swiss hotels are typically very "conservative" (as they tend to be in other countries, but maybe even more so). I had room service at both Beau-Rivage and Dolder and found it perfectly OK. A bit boring, yes, but had reasonably good steaks for example.
By the way, did you notice anything in the lobby? A few months ago, Swiss police very publicly confiscated part of the owner's art collection on display in the Dolder, as he allegedly owes some taxes.
May 18, 2017, 11:27 am
#52
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: England
Posts: 1,361
Quoting myself here. Maybe I should have been clearer - rooms in the original building are indeed nicer.
Again, incredible photos. I particularly like your picture with the sunrise over Lake Zurich.
What was your issue with room service? Room service menus at Swiss hotels are typically very "conservative" (as they tend to be in other countries, but maybe even more so). I had room service at both Beau-Rivage and Dolder and found it perfectly OK. A bit boring, yes, but had reasonably good steaks for example.
By the way, did you notice anything in the lobby? A few months ago, Swiss police very publicly confiscated part of the owner's art collection on display in the Dolder, as he allegedly owes some taxes.
Again, incredible photos. I particularly like your picture with the sunrise over Lake Zurich.
What was your issue with room service? Room service menus at Swiss hotels are typically very "conservative" (as they tend to be in other countries, but maybe even more so). I had room service at both Beau-Rivage and Dolder and found it perfectly OK. A bit boring, yes, but had reasonably good steaks for example.
By the way, did you notice anything in the lobby? A few months ago, Swiss police very publicly confiscated part of the owner's art collection on display in the Dolder, as he allegedly owes some taxes.
Honestly, the food was revolting. At Beau-Rivage it was inedible, whilst at Dolder Grand the butler took the order down wrong and then delivered the wrong food and billed for food that we didn't even have, even though the whole point of a butler service is to offer a "personalised menu", which translates to just the same menu as Saltz, which itself was rubbish. Then what did arrive was of a really low standard. The Dolder Grand are amongst the best I've ever seen of handling complaints, as when we checked out they still had the wrong food and bill for us, so we mentioned it and they just comped the entire in room dining experience as they said it was their fault.
As for the lobby, I read what you mentioned on the Financial Times whilst on the way to Park Hotel Vitznau and had a good chuckle. I didn't see anything that would give that impression. Imagine being a guest and armed guards walking through the lobby and taking paintings off the wall? I bet customer service had some fun.
May 18, 2017, 11:37 am
#53
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: England
Posts: 1,361
Park Hotel Vitznau
This is my Ballyfin of 2017; a hotel that completely took me by surprise at how incredible it is. Iniala and Park Hotel Vitznau in the space of 3 months: I was clearly on Santa's good list this year. Everything here screams luxury, with no cost cutting anywhere and near perfect staff interactions. I loved Beau Rivage, but here we're on another level. The view onto the lake is unbeatable, the food excellent, the tech incredible and the sheer scale of something for a mere 47 rooms is quite something to behold. Yet then you throw in probably the best spa I've ever seen, with a 32C heated outdoor pool and two hot tubs and I think I've found my new home. There are no spa memberships available and only hotel guests are allowed in, which means it's empty 95% of the time, just to make it somehow even better.
I am going to Amanzoe for the 5th time next week and I'm already prepared for the disappointment. It cannot be better than this.
Just as I think it cannot get any better, something new comes along and blows me away. It alone is worth a trip to Switzerland, regardless of where you live. However, I hope everyone reading this takes no note of my opinion at all so it continues to stay exclusive and half empty. Whatever you do, do not come here.
