The hotel, in harmony with its forested location

Tucked above the village of Sils, the Waldhaus hotel offers a blend of natural beauty and 20th-century design. A LUX editor reflects on their retreat, where the surrounding forest and timeless atmosphere offers a sanctuary for artists and wanderers alike

Waldhaus literally means “forest house” in German and, if you walk out of the grand doors of the Waldhaus hotel perched on a rock above the tiny village of Sils, turn left along the path leading through an ancient larch and pine forest and disappear along the mountain slope, you could walk for days without ever emerging from the canopy of the forest above and the humus of the ground below. It is a near-infinite ecosystem of fungi and plants that work in one with the trees, insects and animals to keep this great Alpine forest alive.

A framed view from the Rock Room

You could, in theory, walk for thousands of kilometres circumnavigating the Alps and never emerge from the forest. But that would be a shame, as the Waldhaus, which opened in 1908, is itself just so delicious.

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Unlike some grand Swiss hotels, this is a creative and authentic tribute to 20th-century design, its interior architecture genuinely and lovingly created by generations of owners.

A game of tennis, Waldhaus Sils-Style

It is made to be at one with the forest and many of its picture windows look not over and out of the woods, but inside them, framing them like a Jasper Goodall photograph. The Waldhaus is where writers and artists, including some of the most celebrated in the German-speaking world, have come for generations to relax and be inspired.

It is a hotel as imagined by a poet, the service just formal enough but never oppressive, the food never showy but perfectly made from local ingredients, including a nightly bouillon – always made with a different stock – that is a demonstration of how clear soup is a tonic for the soul.

A space where 20th-century design meets timeless creativity

The hotel, which has 140 rooms and suites, is neither a summer nor a winter resort: it is a place to disappear to and be inspired, whatever the season, and if you wish to vanish up the beautiful hidden valleys of the Engadine above on a summertime walk, or spend the day in winter sports in some of the celebrated mountainsides of adjacent St Moritz, you can.

Read more: A palatial stay at St Regis Hotel, Venice

This is a place for artists – visual, musical, literary – first and foremost. It would never be so gauche as to proclaim that it is so; it just is.

waldhaus-sils.ch

The Hato Restaurant is located in the heart of St. Moritz village, only a few minutes walk away from the well-known Badrutts Palace

In the heart of St Moritz, Hato is all about people watching, inside and out, DJ vibes, and some vibrant pan-Asian cuisine to match anything in Mayfair, as LUX discovers

Slip into a window table at Hato and you have a ringside seat of the high-rolling circus that is St Moritz in season. A slick, dark, club-bar of a restaurant, Hato is right in the heart of the village, slightly elevated from the street, so you can look out, chilling to the DJ tunes, and spot exactly who is in town with which of their lovers/dogs/families.

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The cuisine is Fine Asian and the menu references the Head Chef’s previous role at Sexy Fish in London, but that doesn’t really do justice to Hato: this is much more refined than Sexy Fish, both in concept and execution.

The restaurant with views on the lake of St. Moritz serves fine asian cuisine dishes that are displayed in a very extravagant style

Our Som Tam salad – not jam, coriander, green papaya, carrots, red onion and iceberg – was a dish surely never served before in St Moritz, and had a delicious vibrancy, matched well with our other sharing starter of steamed aubergine with chilli and coriander.

Read More: Roia’s fine-dining in Singapore’s Botanics

Hato started quiet that evening but quite late, as our mains arrived, troupes of young St Moritzians waltzed in, evidently familiar with the place, laughing, jogging over to their regular tables, chatting in the multilingual Esperanto of English, Italian, French and German that is the trademark of the Engadine.

Established in 2015, Hato is known for it’s range of asian foods, from rock shrimp tempura to Hamachi, a new style of yuzu truffle

Next up was handmade dim sum, which we had chosen over tempura, which seems to be everywhere these days. The siu mai and har gau were sufficiently al dente and definite, but it was the spinach and mushroom that caused delectations, likely due to the clarity of the local ingredients.

A main of black cod was originally, and highly successfully, served with saikio miso, truffle yuzu and fennel but the real standout of the whole meal was the whole butterfly seabass, with Thai spices. Zingy, buttery, thought provoking.

Grilled miso chicken, sashimi, nigiri, maki, handmade dim sum with ponzu sauce, shiitake mushrooms, tuna takaky: one doesn’t lack choice at HATO

We’re not sure if people go to Hato for the food or the vibe – both are high up the scale – or to spot their ex walking with someone new down below, to which the only answer is another bottle of Dom Perignon.

www.hato-restaurants.com

An aerial view of Waldhaus Sils with Lake Sils behind

It has long been a source of inspiration to poets, artists and philosophers – and Sils, in the high-altitude valley of Engadine in the Swiss Alps, still proves a haven of luxury and creativity

Arrival
Waldhaus – house in the woods. To an English speaker, it sounds pretty; to a German speaker, there are centuries of myth behind the forest legend. Sitting on a bench, in the larch forest in the grounds of Waldhaus Sils, we pondered this. To one side, the hotel’s terrace restaurant – a terrace dissolved in forest – was finishing up lunch service. Immediately below us, two clay tennis courts lay empty after a family session had finished – a daughter narrowly beating a father, awash with glee; a family that looked as if they had been playing tennis in the woods for generations.

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Beyond, the mountainside dropped down and you could glimpse the valley floor through the trees: a flat glacial meadow and a blue-black lake containing a couple of islands, thick with pines. Beyond, a steep, largely treeless mountainside, grass, rocks, scree, peaks.

Waldhaus Sils is at the highest point of the Engadine, the wide, high-altitude valley that carves through the east of Switzerland like a scratch in the Alps. St Moritz is 10 minutes down the road, but the village of Sils has its own character and history. Nietzsche and Hermann Hesse lived and visited here; generations of artists came here for inspiration, and some, such as Gerhard Richter, 90 years old and widely considered the greatest living artist, still do come to stay at the Waldhaus.

The Waldhaus interior is a triumph of 20th-century modern design

The Experience
The hotel is on a rock just above the village, and what seems at first to be another in the mould of excellent palace buildings in the mountains, turns out to be rather more special.

To walk through the Waldhaus is like walking through a living museum of 20th-century design – when we say living, we mean it’s like a home, rather than curated for the benefit of others. There is a window in one of the drawing rooms that looks directly out at a rock face a couple of metres behind: the rock looks like an artwork in the frame of the window. Everything, from the wood panelling to the chess tables to the signage and the way the keys are arranged behind the reception desk, speaks of indulgent artistry.

Take a room with a balcony and it is as if you are in a tree house, only the balcony also as dramatic views across and along the Engadine and Lake Sils. The rooms themselves continue the theme of being in a home: no nouveau-riche over design here. If you crave three tons of marble in your bathroom, a Toto automatic toilet and Jacuzzi, you would be better to look elsewhere- but as a coherent and relaxing take on classical luxury, it feels wonderful to be in.

Val Fex, high above the Waldhaus, photographed by Isabella Sheherazade Sanai

Eating and Drinking
Most of the residents of the Waldhaus (and it feels like a community of residents, rather than hotel guests) dine at the hotel in the evenings. The dining rooms, high-ceilinged and table-clothed, have huge windows directly into the forest, as if you are in a nest. Each evening brought us a different variation on consommé, a broth made with the stock-variously-of forest mushrooms, local vegetables, corn-fed chicken or Swiss beef; one was made with hay stock, and was sublime.

Otherwise, expect Swiss mountain cuisine, precisely prepared, and a treasury of a wine list that virtually compels you to try the wines of the Büdner Herrschaft – the warm, sunny, bijou wine-growing region in the Rhine valley of eastern Switzerland, over the mountains. There is also the terrace restaurant, overlooking the tennis courts, serving salads and grills for lunch.

Activities
Woodland-walks, lakeside-walks around Lake Sils – inspiration to poets and philosophers – rock climbing, mountain hikes to the hidden Val Fex above the hotel…And that’s just the hiking and climbing, most of which begins on a path directly from the hotel’s back door.

Read more: Bittescombe Lodge and Deer Park, Somerset, Review

You can kite-surf and paraglide nearby, or stroll down to the village of Sils and see Nietzche’s house; or stay in the hotel grounds and swim (indoors), play tennis (indoors or outside in the woods), sunbathe amid the trees – or get a cavas and paint.

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Bovet 19 Thirty Hours hand setting

Swiss watch brand Bovet is renowned for its artistic and mechanically sophisticated high-end timepieces. On the company’s 200th anniversary, owner and managing director Pascal Raffy speaks to Ella Johnson about his plans and dreams

Pascal Raffy is not, at first glance, a likely candidate to own a high luxury Swiss watch brand. Having left his native Lebanon aged 13, he embarked on a successful career in pharmaceuticals, and promptly retired, aged 38. Yet, in 2001, he went on to acquire one of the oldest watch companies in the world.

Swiss watchmaker Édouard Bovet established his eponymous house 200 years ago this year. It soon gained a reputation for the artistry of its engraving and miniature paintings; Bovet also invented the glass case back so beloved of collectors today.

After Raffy bought Bovet, he turned it into a genuine manufacture for the first time: now, even the spirals and regulating organs in each watch are made in-house. Raffy also bought a 14th century castle near Lake Neuchâtel in western Switzerland that was once home to the original Bovet family and restored it, turning it into the brand’s factory and headquarters.

Pascal Raffy, owner and CEO of BOVET 1822

LUX: You were originally from Lebanon, but were uprooted during the conflict there. What do you remember of that time?
Pascal Raffy: Whatever is related to human suffering cannot be forgotten. When the civil war arose, all parts of the country suffered a lot. It was a very difficult period, not only for myself and my family, but for all families. It is a disaster of what humankind can do, and is written in my body, in my blood.

Lebanon was, and still is, considered to be the Switzerland of the Middle East, with its beauty. It is one of those rare places where you can go swimming, and then half an hour later go and ski in the mountains. I had a true appreciation and love for Switzerland, too, because we had been going to Sion since my childhood on holiday. So, when I was unable to study anymore in Lebanon, at 13, we went to Sion. Like Lebanon, it is a beautiful, disciplined country, with so many assets in so many fields, and a deep civic sense.

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LUX: What did your career look like before Bovet?
Pascal Raffy: My family were industrialists in pharmaceuticals, so after I finished my studies, I started working in that field. But I decided to stop everything when I was 38 years old, thanks to my oldest daughter, Audrey, who told my own father that although she was very happy, she was [sad to] not be able to see me more often. It was at that moment that I decided to stop doing absolutely everything. My family thought I was kidding, but I was very serious. I stopped everything and retired when I was 38 in beautiful Switzerland.

LUX: So what compelled you to come out of retirement?
Pascal Raffy: One day, one of my bankers came to see me with some brands in search of investments [and mentioned Bovet]. I already knew the house, and it was truly love at first sight. I dreamt a lot in the months after that conversation about paying the house its due respect with true facilities and artisans, and so I bought it in 2001. In 2006 I also bought Château de Môtiers – not because it was a castle, but because it belonged to the Bovet family, so it had the meaning. It was then that our journey with the facilities, where today we do our age-old dials, our hands, our movements, began.

Château de Môtiers, where all BOVET 1822 watches are manufactured

LUX: How did you know how to run a high-end watch company and expand it?
Pascal Raffy: I did not know at all. To be in the position of a collector is not the same as running a watchmaking facility every day. But between pharmaceuticals and watchmaking there are a lot of common parts. In healthcare you must be organised, clean, and disciplined. The most important thing is quality.

LUX: You could have bought a stake in Bovet, appointed a managing director and taken a back seat as chairman.
Pascal Raffy: The House of Bovet has never been exclusively an investment for me. It has always been clear in the long term that true watchmaking is based on patience. Time is a true luxury. If you expect a return on your investment in two years, it’s not this kind of watchmaking that you have to develop. If you want to defend a project where a house can become an institution in the long run, you have to establish true facilities over time, because the most important asset is the artisans, not the machinery or the buildings.

I also wanted, selfishly, to serve myself. That’s a fact. When globalisation started, and a lot of things became impersonal and mass produced, my project in life became to defend detail and heritage. I love to design my timepieces and have designed my collections since 2001. It’s not work, it’s a passion.

BOVET 1822 x Rolls Royce Collection, bespoke timepiece

LUX: How did word about your reinvention of Bovet spread?
Pascal Raffy: To grow a house is like growing a child: it takes time. For us, it’s a generation. We all know that when we travel, we talk, we tell stories. But the most valuable thing is when people actually come to the castle, spend time with the artisans, and see that Bovet is creating all its timepieces in-house. That is very important, because then the collectors become like the press. They are our ambassadors. It is an authentic way of doing things.

LUX: Some of your timepieces, like Bovet 1822 Miss Audrey Sweet Art, which has a dial made from sugar, are quite creative.
Pascal Raffy: In French, my grandmother always used to call me mon petit sucre, ‘my little sugar,’ as a token of affection. I started working with the artisans to try to master a technique in which sugar could be used in our creations and would not melt. We had to choose every single sugar crystal, making sure everything was going to float beautifully around the dial. So it was poetic, and engineering at the same time. It was a great success because it is surprising and truly different.

Miss Audrey Sweet Art gradient sugar crystal dial

LUX: You mention the importance of family: are there any plans for your daughter, Audrey, who has now joined Bovet, to take over the company?
Pascal Raffy: Audrey has always been in love with what we do with the artisans, and I’m very proud of that. Yet she is the first one to realise that it takes time to understand all the elements, so there is no hurry. I am letting time take its time. I know I can rely on the wisdom of Audrey step by step.

Read more: Patrick Sun on Promoting LGBTQ+ Art in Asia

LUX: You have teamed up with Automobili Pininfarina, the car manufacture and design house that created some of the most legendary Ferraris.
Pascal Raffy: What happened with Pininfarina was destiny – a moment of life, not a business meeting! I happened to meet Paolo Pininfarina in California, and I realised that we had the same way of thinking about companies, entities, what we do every day.

Paolo kindly asked me if I would go on a journey to try and design a timepiece with him. The scale is different, but the will is the same.

Pascal Raffy and Paolo Pininfarina

LUX: And you also created something for the remarkable, bespoke $28m Rolls-Royce Boat Tail.
Pascal Raffy: The partnership with Rolls-Royce came about thanks to a couple of extraordinary collectors, who love and understand true luxury and the House of Bovet. We created something absolutely unique: two mechanical timepieces on the dashboard of the car, with all the additional capabilities to wear them as wristwatches, or use them as table clocks, with such dense artistry. In the same way as the sugar dials, this had never been done before.

Find out more: bovet.com

This weekend Hublot’s high altitude polo tournament returns to the Swiss resort of Gstaad

Gstaad annually plays host to the world’s ‘highest’ polo tournament, Hublot’s prestigious Polo Gold Cup in which four world-class teams battle it out for the winning prize of Hublot’s Big Bang Steel Ceramic watches. This year will see Clinique La Prairie, Gstaad Palace and Hublot‘s teams try to overthrow last year’s victorious captain Cédric Schweri (the Swiss restaurateur) and his Banque Eric Sturdza team who have been unbeatable since 2017.

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Meanwhile, spectators will celebrate in style sipping at glasses of champagne or bottles of bottom-fermented Swiss beer against the backdrop of the snow-capped Alps. For VIPs, there’s the Gala Night dinner, and exclusive closing lunch, followed by the finale and an afternoon prize-giving ceremony hosted by LVMH watches CEO (and LUX columnist) Jean-Claude Biver.

All photography by Kathrin Gralla at the 2018 tournament

The Hublot Polo Gold Cup runs from 22 -25 August 2019. For more information visit: polo-gstaad.ch