Inside the controversial new hotel hoping to awaken a sleepy Swiss ski resort
Switzerland’s Graubünden region is studded with well-known ski areas that have a loyal British following. Among the gems are the recently extended resort of Andermatt, and upmarket Davos and St Moritz, but the less showy resort of Flims has remained under the radar.
The village is set at a relatively low 1,100m, but its 224km ski area shared with the neighbouring resorts of Laax and Falera is one of the largest in Switzerland, with four state-of-the-art terrain parks and 28 lifts.
Swiss and Germans visit in droves, but upmarket operator Powder Byrne is one of a tiny number of UK companies offering holidays here, with several traditional Swiss hotels on its books.
This season, it’s also offering a new contemporary and convenient hotel, The Hide, set to broaden the appeal of Flims. While strong on chalet-style guesthouses and old-school 19th-century spa hotels in gated grounds, the resort has lacked anything to rival the modern complexes of next-door Laax, with their piste-side rooms and youthful vibe.
The Hide Hotel is a high-end retreat with 47 rooms, housed in the newly-opened Stenna complex, designed by Austrian architects Baumschlager Eberle. Its elongated four-storey facade, resembling an ocean liner, is dramatically bridged across a valley, right next to the Flims lift base station.
The Stenna complex also houses a café, bar, shops, cinema, bank, medical centre, car park, art gallery and the 2,000sqm Kindercity. This dedicated children’s zone has craft areas, cookery workshops and a robotics lab among other family entertainment, and offers reduced entrance fees to Hide guests.
A somewhat controversial modern backdrop for Flims, the Stenna isn’t universally loved, but when I visited in January 2019, I found that despite its size this hub doesn’t detract from the resort’s homely, villagey atmosphere with its chalet-style houses strung along a winding main street and a small Alpine church that chimes the quarter hour.
The Hide Hotel is spread over all four floors of the Stenna building (ground-floor reception, first-floor restaurant, second-floor spa, top-floor bedrooms), and because there are doors on some floors accessing the public shopping and entertainment concourses, its layout can feel a little baffling at first.
The 1,000m spa is still work in progress – it is scheduled to open in May with facilities such as an ice grotto and a private area for two, as well as sauna, steam room and fitness equipment. Two serviced apartment blocks behind the building are also scheduled to open later this year.
The Hide’s bedrooms and public rooms are however fully open, and combine gemstone colours with tactile furnishings. Created by Erik Nissen Johansen of Swedish design company Stylt Trampoli, the snug interiors provide a striking contrast to the building’s plain, modern exterior, with soft lighting, wooden floors, velvet sofas and fur-clad chairs. The lobby packs a powerful first punch with an agate-yellow rug, ruby-red chairs and amethyst-purple walls.
Bedrooms are cossetingly cosy with sumptuous, emerald green curtains and bed throws. Quartz-mauve streaks weave dramatically through the carpets and walls are boldly mismatched: one side geometric wood marquetry, the other, dark and sultry, sparkling with a crystalline glitter.
My open-plan, black-tiled bathroom was a seductive and slightly more urban than alpine with industrial touches of concrete and brass. Delicious organic Natural Remedies toiletries included a pungent sage and blackcurrant body wash and although there was too much snow to venture onto the balcony, I was happy to gaze at spectacular mountain scenery through big French windows from my comfy, rubellite-red chair.
Powder Byrne offers B&B and half-board packages to the Hide and while there are plenty of eating options on the doorstep, the hotel’s two restaurants, overseen by chef Adrian Tschanz, have tempting and varied menus, including vegetarian and vegan dishes.
The speciality in the more formal of the two, Hide Dining, with brasserie-style banquette seating and an intimate atmosphere, is grilled Swiss beef entrec?te from the Grison region, served with French fries with melted cheese and sage. Desserts include white Toblerone parfait with blackcurrant, panna cotta with blueberries, warm waffles with pickled grapes and mascarpone foam or nut cake with caramel. Breakfast – served in the same room – is a restrained but tasty buffet of juices, yogurts, pastries and freshly cooked savouries.
The hotel's more casual Hide Deli offers a mix of alpine, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food, served in a green-tiled room with leather-backed chairs. Choices included salads and mezze, but I tucked into a tasty dish of zucchini with baked tomatoes, rocket and marinated mascarpone on a pizza base.
But perhaps the hotel’s biggest plus point is the easy access to the slopes. While not quite ski-in/ski-out from the door, it’s the closest there is to it in Flims. Within a few steps of The Hide’s ski room is the lift base station with the Arena Express gondola to Plaun (1,630m). From here, it’s a quick chairlift ride to Crap Sogn Gion (2,228m) or another gondola to Nagens (2,127m).
So cosy is the Hide that I almost resented the bluebird day that delivered perfect snow and sunshine during my stay. But no excuses, and off I went to Crap Masegn, the Vorab glacier and La Siala to enjoy the best of the area’s open-mountain pistes. A day of superb blues, exciting reds and some exhilarating blacks, rounded off with a thigh-burning descent from Crap Sogn Gion, convinced me that there are two gems waiting to be discovered here, and The Hide Hotel is just one of them.
Need to know
Powder Byrne has packages to The Hide from ￡1,120 B&B for a three-night weekend stay or ￡1,905 for seven nights, based on two sharing a double or twin room, including flights, transfers and in-resort Powder Byrne services such as ski guiding and children's programmes. Seven-night half-board packages start at ￡2,175.
