Le Chabichou, Courchevel 1850

Courchevel has spent decades turning itself into the most polished resort in the Alps, and every winter brings new names and a little more gloss. Le Chabichou has taken the opposite course. It began in 1963, when a young couple bought a chalet with nine bedrooms and started cooking for their guests. Its chef, Stéphane Buron, arrived in 1987 and still runs the kitchen. In Courchevel, that kind of loyalty is rarer than an empty piste in February.

The house has since grown into two large white chalets beside the Chenus piste, close to the centre of Courchevel 1850. The Lavorel family took it over not long ago and restored it gently rather than starting again. The interior architect Émilie Rollet gave it a look of quiet alpine comfort, with wood-panelled walls and tartan on the headboards. In the lounge, a big fireplace carries the evening. Nothing here pretends to be grander than a very good mountain house, and in this resort that takes some nerve.

There are forty-one rooms and suites, plus a penthouse under the roof. The classic rooms are snug and a few are on the dark side, so the suites with their larger windows are the ones to ask for. Bathrooms pair marble with wood, and wool throws lie on the beds. Dogs may stay too, a small sign of how informal the house remains. In keeping with the rest, the rooms do not try to steal the show; they are made for the hours between dinner and the first lift.

The day runs the way a skier's day should. The last run ends at the boot-room door rather than at a bus stop, and the hotel's ski shop takes the equipment from there. Down the corridor lies the spa, among the biggest in the resort, with hammams and a salt grotto. The cold plunge pool is the bravest part, a brief shock that leaves the legs ready for another day. Afterwards, the fireplace is waiting.

Dinner is where the seasoning shows. Stéphane Buron, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, leads a kitchen of some twenty cooks, and his menu is grounded in the Alps rather than in fashion. His pig, served from head to trotter, is a house classic. The wine list, as loyal as everything else here, never leaves Savoie. The staff are warm and expert without fuss. Many speak with local accents and have characters of their own, a welcome change from the high polish of the grander houses nearby. For a less formal evening, though hardly a lighter one, Le Sidonie serves the Savoyard specialities, and La Ferme Saint-Amour keeps the night going.

The constancy has a few flaws, mostly on the hotel side. At peak weeks, requests to reception can take longer than they should. Breakfast is much the same every day, which is loyalty of a less thrilling kind.

Every winter, Courchevel reinvents itself with new names on the doors. At Le Chabichou the same chef still seasons the food, nearly forty years on, and on this mountain that has quietly become the newest idea in town.