Cuisine et Vins

A visionary's dream

It is almost a hundred years since the resort opened up to tourism under the impetus of the highly visionary Baroness Noémie de Rothschild, who dreamed of creating a French St Moritz. "It was just after the First World War, and she was tired of running into Germans in Switzerland, champagne glass in hand," recalls Édouard Apertet, heritage guide. Megève never stopped innovating: the first electric lighting, the first luxury hotel, perched on Mont d'Arbois, and in 1936 France's first alpine skiing medal, won by local boy Émile Allais. The international snow polo tournament and ice hockey came later. "The other figure not to forget is the parish priest Ambroise Martin," points out Édouard Apertet. "As early as 1880, people travelled from all over France to bow before the Calvary he had built." Listed as historic monuments, its fourteen chapels and oratories dot the landscape like a rosary, attracting day trippers and lifelong visitors alike.

Jazz and delights

Turks, Russians, Indians, Swiss and French… Families and the happy few from all over the world now flock to Megève's gentle way of life. At six o'clock, elegant ladies in pale minks take their seats in one of the carriages waiting on the Grand Place. A few streets away, a jazz tune drifts up. It is the blessed hour of après-ski. Each (sumptuous) hotel has its own design and gourmet codes. A cosy atmosphere and delicious tea time at Le George, the lounge of the legendary Mont-Blanc. Hunting trophies and log walls at the Lodge Park bar, where people come to sip a Savoie wine or a Pauillac while nibbling foie gras and king prawns.