Megève vs. Aspen: The Best of Both Worlds

In truth, I was in Geneva for the Baselworld watch fair and my company’s own CHARRIOL watch salon held this year at the Le Richmond hotel in Geneva. But when a friend’s birthday celebration was scheduled for this past weekend in Megève, France, I could not resist the temptation to extend my business trip for a last gasp of skiing in my favorite Alpine village while basking in some of my childhood memories in our family chalet and enjoying a truly decadent few days of the best après-ski that Europe has to offer (thanks to the birthday boy!).

The other option would have been to finish work and return to New York, and then spend the Holy Week just before Easter vacationing with my kids and husband in Aspen. So the question my editor asked me to consider is this: is it better to ski in America or in Europe?

Wow, how spoiled this must sound, deciding between enjoying the last moments of the ski season in arguably the best American ski town and the best in the French Alps! What can I say, except that I am lucky to have parents who invested in these two idyllic ski resorts decades ago.

So, is Megève too low altitude to have good snow, especially so late in the season? Or did I make the right choice in heading back to the French Alps, eschewing the tacking glitz of Aspen with cougars and trophy wives? The truth is that both are ideal in their own ways, and neither are the clichés that one might believe.

The weather this past weekend (the last in March) dispelled the principal cliché against Megève, namely that it is too low in the Alps to offer good skiing, especially early and late in the season. While my friends in Aspen were texting their condolences to me for missing a foot of fresh powder in Colorado, Megève was experiencing its own vrai tempête de neige (a real snow storm) off and on from Friday night through Sunday afternoon! While it was probably a bit less than Aspen’s snowfall, and down in the lower altitude of the village there were some rain showers, the storm produced wonderful quantities of fresh powder high up on the ski areas of Rochebrune, Mont d’Arbois, and the Cote 2000.

We skied excellent terrain—groomers with plenty of powder at the top of the trails and, of course, mushier conditions at the lower altitudes. But contrary to the common perception of there not being enough snow in Megève, our only complaint was there was too much at times, which caused us to seek the comfort of the various alpine restaurants to stay warm, get overfed, and drink too much!

Like Aspen with the Silver Queen Gondola in the center of town, getting up on the mountains above Megève is about as painless as can be. All of our visiting friends were staying at the Fermes de Marie hotel in town (for two decades, the creation of our friends the Sibuet family, who still run it impeccably), where they could walk (or be shuttled by the hotel’s Land Rovers) to the “Rochebrune Eggs,” which take you directly up to the trails. From the top of Rochebrune, one can access the pistes of that mountain as well as neighboring Cote 2000 (the highest ski mountain in Megève) or even take a cable car across to access the Mont d’Arbois ski area, which extends the acres of excellent terrain at your disposal. In contrast, while the ski areas of Aspen are easily accessed by bus or car, there is no cable car system connecting Ajax, Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass (a plan exists for interconnecting the mountains, but it’s shelved for now due to the high cost).

While the inviting comfort of the ski gondola was a European invention, recent years have seen the Americans in Aspen take the lead with new quad and six-seat express speed lifts. Megève is trying to catch up, and I did notice that a few of the older chairlifts have been replaced by newer, speedier models, but the two dreaded tire-fesses (literally “pulls you up by your behind”) that haunted me as a child have yet to be replaced.

The skiing on Megève’s three principal mountains is excellent, as is the case in Aspen. But unlike Aspen, where food is very much an afterthought, in Megève, lunch is probably the key determinant in where one chooses to ski that day. I should say that the exceptions in Aspen are the Mountain Club on Ajax where the food is mediocre at best but which tends to cause its members to ski Ajax religiously out of fear for visiting another mountain where they would have to wait in lines with the masses, as well as Cloud Nine up on Highlands, which is run by our inimitable friend Andreas Fischbacher, who truly does serve the closest thing to great European fare on a U.S. ski mountain, with plenty of charm and atmosphere to boot.

But in Megève, you have your pick of the real deal, what Andreas’ spot is modeled after. When on Mont d’Arbois, one eats at L’Idéal, which sadly is under new management and not as memorable as it once was but still offers a solid meal and excellent atmosphere. When on Cote 2000, the best place to eat is the namesake restaurant at the bottom, and, for me, was a charming and welcome respite from Saturday’s snowstorm. On the crest of the Alpette piste on Rochebrune rests the restaurant L’Alpette, now also run by the Sibuet family of Fermes de Marie fame (they have come to own many of the best run hotels and restaurants in Megève and elsewhere in France), where I enjoyed a wonderful lunch with friends on Sunday afternoon. The interior is rustic and charming, with a large fireplace in the bar area where walk-ins are welcome, as well as another fireplace that warms the main dining room where reservations are a must, even on the last weekend of the season. I learned this the hard way on Sunday when I forgot to reserve, was sidelined to the tourist section by the hostess, and was only saved by a childhood acquaintance and his bride, who invited us to join…thank you Axel! Yesterday, I cleared my plate of grilled beef and salad but still made room for the most delicious tarte aux myrtilles that I have had in years, accompanied by an equally satisfying dollop of homemade crème Chantilly. (As a French woman living in New York, this is the sort of thing you just cannot find in America, even in the best French restaurants.)

Après-ski in Megève is remarkably good. There are too many places to mention. For families or the less rowdy, there are superb creperies (Chez Maria, right at the base of the Rochebrune Eggs, is the most charming and still my favorite). For the boys looking to down a few pints, there are the old standbys of La Calèche or the Brasserie Centrale, both right in the middle of town. All of the hotels offer great après-ski with wonderful atmospheres. There is definitely a scene, and picking up someone is just as possible as in Aspen, but in Megève, it doesn’t feel as forced as the more “slick” après-ski bar scenes that one finds in America.

Dining in Megève is truly a differentiator as well. You have the haute gastronomy of Flacons de Sel created by my good friend Emmanuel Renaut, which simply does not exist in a place like Aspen, no matter how much one likes the food at the Nell. You also have excellent diversity of cuisine and price, such as the lower-priced, large portions offered at the Bistro of Flacons de Sel located in the center of town, Chez Nano’s excellent food up in the mountains above town at La Sauvageonne, as well as the various bistros offering solid food at good prices that are interspersed along the main street in town and around the Place de l’Eglise.

Aspen is not as fortunate in terms of the variety and quality of its restaurants. The best restaurant in town is clearly Cache-Cache run by Jodi Larner, who is as smart and nice as she as an excellent restaurateur (I love it when the good guy/gal wins!), which explains why it is nearly impossible to get a reservation there during high season, but well worth the effort! Last year, Jodi expanded, so she now has a large casual bar area where reservations are not required and the food is just as good. The other food standout in town is Matsuhisa, Nobu’s Aspen outpost, which is consistently good. Other solid eateries are Montagna at the Nell and the new Il Mulino New York at the Nell Residences, as well as Ajax Tavern on Ajax Mountain, which is great for lunch.

Aside from these five, the rest of Aspen’s eateries pale in comparison to their Megèvan counterparts. For a fancy pizza and a good salad, Mezzaluna is okay, but too predictable to be noteworthy. Campo de Fiori offers Italian fare considered “great!” by people who apparently have never been to Italy or are biased by Campo’s (in all fairness) fun nightlife scene. The rest of the restaurants are forgettable old standbys or just one of the annual newcomers that try to make a splash to attract attention with experimental menus but end up delivering nothing more than subpar food at unwarranted high prices.

So while I tend to eat out when in Megève, I tend to cook at home in Aspen. If I do venture out with guests in Aspen, I stick to the five that I mentioned. Otherwise, with my husband and kids, we like the local greasy spoons like Little Annie’s for burgers, Hickory House for barbecue and ribs, and Boogie’s for classic diner food.

The key to Aspen is not getting trapped in the cliché of trying a new fancy restaurant each night. That is what New Yorkers tend to do. But that is not the real Aspen! When my uncle settled in Aspen in the 1960s, it was a hippy town, and, like him, most of the hippies, intellectuals, and art-loving eccentrics are still there—you just have to look beneath the surface. You might find them at the Caribou Club once a year (or twice) for a good laugh, but for the most part they’re dining at home, going to the Wheeler Opera House for a performance, or waiting for the winter snows to fade, which leads to the inevitable disappearance of the (mainly Los Angeles and New York City) tourists. I still enjoy the Caribou, where the food and wine list are actually exceptionally good, but even Billy Stolz’s excellent management cannot make up for the lack of quality in the crowd, so I am not a frequent visitor.

Aspen’s architecture and heritage are largely preserved, with some unfortunate exceptions. But then again, it is hard to argue that Aspen’s original township from the mining days really was some sort of World Heritage site worth saving. I think the city has done a good job of saving the best of the old with thoughtful restoration. Megève on the other hand is a much older village, and for the most part, the Megèvans have done a better job than any other Alpine ski village at preserving the old warm buildings and charm. That said, both Aspen and Megève are in danger of being what I call “mall-ified,” my term for when a beautiful resort town attracts too much attention and the landlords push out the mom-and-pop shops in favor of the global luxury brands. Part of what made Aspen and Megève fun for girls like me growing up there was that we could shop for clothes and accessories that you could not find just as easily at a shopping mall in New Jersey, Beijing, or Dubai.

One of the clichés about Aspen is that it is all about money and glitz, but there is a deeply rooted more down-to-earth community that emerges in the summer to celebrate the arts but is also around in winter, if you know where to be (and more importantly, where not to be).

The same is true of Megève, where my most cherished experiences are still with the “old guard” of the town, be they Rothschilds or farmers. On my last day there, I skied with Philippe Laffont, the best instructor on the mountain, who taught me how to ski as a child but is now a close friend. That night, I had a facial and massage in my home from Valerie, who used to work at the Fermes de Marie but now has her own business, and again whom I like to talk to as a friend as much as to enjoy her excellent services. I finished the weekend having aperitifs, fromages, saucisson, and excellent Bordeaux with my father at home, followed by a stroll down the street to one of the oldest chalets in the village still owned by a fascinating local couple that have been in Megève for decades. He is the descendant of one of the great French Impressionist painters, and she comes from a long line of French gourmands. Sitting in her kitchen as she put the finishing touches on a feast (for only five of us) of blanquette de veau and poulet fermier with all the fresh local side dishes, she showed me her first edition of a cooking and dinner menus guide book penned by King Louis XIII’s chef du cuisine, which has been in her family since close to the book’s printing in 1734.

As much as I love Aspen, it is just unthinkable for a weekend in Aspen to end in such a way. But does that make Megève better than Aspen? Certainly not. There are days in Aspen just as good…but just different. Long live Aspen, and vivre Megève aussi!