The 22 Best Resorts in Switzerland

You can reach this lakeside resort by car, boat, or funicular, which sets the tone before you've even checked in. The suites look out over Lake Lucerne, the spa runs to 10,000 square metres with indoor and outdoor pools, and the whole place has the faded-glamour bones of somewhere Audrey Hepburn once stayed, thoroughly modernised. The Michelin Guide awarded it 3 Keys.

The ornate bathing hall fed by a natural hot spring tells you everything about what kind of place this is: a grand Swiss resort built around the old tradition of taking the waters in style. Rooms range from antique formal to sharply contemporary, and the wellness program runs from thermal baths to full medical consultations. A Michelin Guide 3 Keys property, with several starred restaurants on site.

The turreted silhouette glows against the Alpine night like something out of a fairy tale, which is more or less the point. This grand resort hotel sits on a hilltop above Gstaad, open only through ski season and midsummer, which says something about the clientele. Wood-vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, champagne by the fire, and a spa built around fifty tons of local granite. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

A 140-hectare private estate on the shores of Lake Maggiore, with its own vineyard producing wine under the Cantina alla Maggia label, sets the tone for this Ticino resort. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys. Rooms spread across manicured grounds, a 2,500-square-meter spa handles the restorative work, and a private beach keeps things unhurried. The cooking leans on what the estate and the surrounding Mediterranean larder produce.

A Bavarian design studio built CERVO's 54 rooms and lodges to hold their own against the Matterhorn, which is setting the bar in the most literal way possible. This resort in the car-free heart of Zermatt leans into wellness via the Atman Mountain Spa, with yoga, meditation, and Japanese-style onsen baths. Dining runs from Middle Eastern to Italian to traditional Valaisian, so nobody has to agree on a cuisine. The Michelin Guide awards it 2 Keys.

The private ski lift says everything about this grand alpine hotel just outside St. Moritz. Inside, the old-world atmosphere holds firm: wood beams, coffered ceilings, an oak-paneled bar, a billiards room, and a dining room where children are required to dress for dinner. Rooms are classic and quietly luxurious. Breakfast is a lavish Swiss spread, and an indoor pool faces the mountains. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.

A palazzo-style grand hotel in St. Moritz, turrets and blue shutters and all, built over a mineral spring that still feeds the spa's pools and baths below. Chandelier dining, high tea with Swiss patisserie, and a gondola station directly across the street for the slopes. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Key. It's the kind of place where "popping out for a ski" feels like a completely reasonable sentence.

Ten acres of parkland between Geneva and the airport, right on the lake, make this design hotel feel more like a private resort than a city stop. Jacques Garcia, the man behind Hôtel Costes, handled the interiors: leather desks, oiled hardwood floors, velvet bedspreads in deep reds and violets. The spa takes up an entire floor. A Michelin Guide Key recognizes it among Switzerland's notable places to stay.

The exterior looks like a marzipan model of an Engadine farmhouse, all painted stucco and shutters, giving nothing away. Inside, this design hotel in Champfèr near St. Moritz earns its Michelin Key with timbered ceilings updated by a palette of pale wood, cream, and bursts of fuchsia or lime. Two bars, three restaurants, and a spa handle most excuses to leave, which in St. Moritz winters is exactly the point.

Perched on Mont-Pèlerin above Lake Geneva, surrounded by UNESCO-recognized vineyards, this 64-room resort earns its name in a way a roadside pullout never could. Rooms in the older wing run to gold-flecked tapestries and floor-to-ceiling drapes; the newer junior suites go modern, with stone bathrooms and generous terraces. Every room faces the lake, which does a lot of the decorating. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

The Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau fill the windows here, which sets a high bar for anything else the resort has to offer. Bergwelt Grindelwald is an alpine design resort in the middle of Grindelwald's après-ski orbit, with bars, lounges, spa facilities, and terraces arranged around rooms that mix statement furniture and contemporary lines with the kind of plush linens that make a cold mountain morning tolerable. It holds a Michelin Key.

Pine paneling and faux-fur touches nod to Alpine tradition, but the rooms at this mountain resort skew contemporary, with high-tech amenities, lavish bathrooms, and balconies aimed squarely at the peaks. The 4 Elements Spa runs to an indoor pool, multiple saunas, and enough water features to forget there's a ski slope outside. Davos is famous for suits in January; the guests here are more likely in ski boots. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

The old Swiss lakeside building bolted onto a minimalist modern wing tells you this resort operates on its own logic. Rooms range from warm, organic "natural chic" to graphic nature-print walls to former boathouse quarters with raw wood and textured concrete hovering over the water. Then there's the Thai spa, convincingly so. Two of the three restaurants lean Thai as well, which is either charming or deeply confusing, depending on your afternoon. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A grand mountain hotel above Villars-sur-Ollon, the Villars Palace holds a Michelin Key and membership in Leading Hotels of the World, and it leans into that standing with spa facilities running bioactive skincare treatments alongside a hammam and sauna. The dining spans Mediterranean to Swiss, the rooms face forest and peak, and the hotel doubles as a gallery space for rotating local and international artists. Old-school alpine resort, quietly updated.

Floor-to-ceiling windows and private balconies mean the Engadin Valley does most of the decorating at this contemporary alpine hotel just outside St. Moritz. The building is deliberately low-slung, all glass and local timber, chosen over the usual chalet kitsch. Seventy rooms lean clean-lined and blond-wood calm, junior suites nearly double the space, and the spa throws in an underwater relaxation bed for guests who find hot tubs insufficiently dramatic.

Kurhaus translates literally as "cure house," and this hillside spa hotel above Lake Lugano has been in the curing business for a very long time. The DOT.Spa anchors the whole operation, backed by a pool bar, a cocktail bar, and a restaurant ensuring nobody accidentally detoxes too hard. Rooms face either the lake or the gardens, all done in a contemporary style that nods to the sanatorium past without feeling clinical about it.

Ski-in, ski-out access to the Cry d'Er gondola sits right outside the door, which is a useful amenity when the building itself looks like a luxury spaceship that studied Alpine architecture for a semester abroad. This is a high-end Swiss mountain resort with rooms in chic dark neutrals, full-length windows framing the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, a vast spa that offers both massages and "biohacking," and a Japanese restaurant alongside an all-day Alpine brasserie.

Parked right at the cable-car station in Laax, this ski resort runs on regional hydroelectricity and was built with sustainably sourced materials, which gives eco-credentials a more architectural feel than a bumper sticker. Rooms range from doubles to apartments for groups of eight, so families and friend-packs both fit. The Alps handle the scenery, and several on-site restaurants cover the Surselva region's cooking for when legs give out after a day on the slopes.

Geodesic pods dot a quiet Alpine hillside above Les Giettes, each one sitting on its own platform with 25 km of private hiking trails threading between them. This is glamping with a straight face: the pods run on electricity, sleep you in a fully fitted bathroom, and some come with saunas, Japanese furo baths, or indoor hammocks. Breakfast can be delivered to the pod, which is a 15-minute walk from reception, so plan accordingly.

Rough timber ceilings meeting high-glam contemporary interiors is either a disaster or a statement, and at W Verbier it lands as the latter. This is a full-service Alpine hotel with a spa, fitness facilities, and multiple spots for eating and drinking, from sushi and tapas to Swiss mountain classics. The brand's signature irreverence keeps things from going too après-ski stuffy, which in Verbier, given the clientele, is its own small miracle.