Aurelio Lech

Class: Deluxe

Style: Stylish alternative

Rooms: 19

The tendency for up-market ski-resort hotels to resemble sleek, city-centre properties continues. But perhaps not for long, since at the Aurelio the style has surely reached its apogee. The interiors, by Mlinaric, Henry & Zervudachi, are so resolved and so beautifully finished that although the materials used - African fabrics, 'flash-roasted' pine (it darkens the wood and gives depth to the grain) and leather - are tactile and natural, the effect is almost forbidding. But if cosiness is taboo here, comfort and conviviality certainly aren't. The 10 bedrooms and suites are large; and so expertly is the hotel managed and staffed that the atmosphere is always relaxed. The Aurelio's restaurant can hold its own against stiff competition in classy Lech; the spa is super-cool (although the twinkling lights in the 23-metre pool are disarming). Despite its cutting-edge modernity, the hotel looks from the outside like a pair of fairly ordinary, chalet-style buildings. What is the third, slightly stand-offish building? It is a self-contained chalet, stunningly large and full of old-school luxury, linked to the hotel by a tunnel along which catering and other services can be delivered. It is whispered in Lech that the chalet - which has its own spa - was all the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska wanted to build, but that strict controls on outsiders building private houses led to the hotel. The nine-room chalet is also open to guests; but they must have pockets as deep as an oligarch's if the rumoured €18,000 per night rate merely for the two-bed master suite ('price on application') is accurate.

Source: Conde Nast Traveller The Hot List 2010.