Zannier Le Chalet Megève

There was a time when dinner in this Megève farmhouse came with a view of the cows. Marc Veyrat, the chef in the black hat, ran one of the most celebrated kitchens in France here, and he kept cows and chickens inside the building, behind windows in the walls and even one set into the floor, so that diners could watch the farm while they ate the mountain. It was gastronomy as theatre, and gourmets travelled across Europe for a seat at La Ferme de mon Père.

Then the chef moved on, the animals left, and the house fell silent. When Arnaud Zannier found it for sale, he made it the first of his hotels, the seed of a collection that now reaches from the rice fields of Cambodia to the Namibian desert. More interesting is what he chose not to do. Rather than stage a new spectacle in an old theatre, he turned the theatre into a home.

If Veyrat's house was a stage, Zannier's is a living room. The group's own design studio stripped it back to old oak, wood finished with lime and linen washed soft, and every piece of furniture has been chosen for what it leaves out. There are only twelve rooms and suites, most with a fire of their own, and on a snowy evening nothing in the building makes more noise than the logs in the grate.

The arrangement makes most sense against the way Megève's wealthiest visitors have always skied. For generations the grandest option has been a private chalet, rented with a cook, a driver and someone to light the fires. Le Chalet is that private chalet, with a hotel's service attached. Some forty staff look after those twelve rooms, a car and driver wait at the door, and every afternoon the day dissolves into a goûter of pastries by the hearth, as if the house came with a grandmother.

The restaurant now occupies the old stables, where the animals once lived, and it kept its famous name while lowering its voice. The cooking is first-rate French produce handled without fuss, the room is warm rather than reverent, and diners talk instead of whispering. A wine bar serves small plates next door, and below ground the spa feels like a softly lit cave.

The old legend has left the plate, the table is far simpler now, and a house this small asks for some planning. The slopes are a car ride away, the spa has just two treatment rooms, the restaurant and bar draw plenty of outside guests, and twelve rooms are often spoken for long before the snow arrives.

In its first life, this house fed cows. In its second, it fed critics. In its third, it feeds a dozen households at a time, and nobody at the table is taking notes.