Hôtel Macchi Restaurant & Spa

The hotel in Chatel provides a well-equipped spa, spacious and comfortable rooms, and excellent staff service. Its prime location offers easy access to shops, restaurants, and ski slopes, with stunning mountain views.

This review covers just the restaurant as we were not staying at the hotel. The initial service was good as we arrived at 7pm and were one of only two tables in the restaurant being served. The food was great and the service was prompt. However, as the restaurant began to fill up, our waiter seemed to abandon us in favour of serving all the other tables instead. Having finished our main courses at around 8pm, our plates were never cleared before we decided to leave at after 8.30pm. The extraordinary thing was that the waiter was seating other diners, taking their orders, serving their meals and clearing their plates while walking past our table where it was obvious we had finished our meal and were ready for the next course. It was almost that, after having served us the main course, his job was done, or that he deliberately ignored us. The terrible service ruined what had initially seemed was going to be a lovely meal and evening. If the Hotel Macchi really wants to maintain its reputation as a luxury hotel-spa and restaurant, it should train its staff better.

Thank you to Peron and Max for a totally brilliant stay. We booked through *********** and, in our experience, as Brits abroad in a post Brexit Europe, when you contact the hotel the response is a little stilted. Not here. The communication from the Macchi team was really great, particularly Valentine. We were able to pre book ski hire and Spa treatments without any problem. Our booking was for four nights. We took the red eye flight to Geneva, so we could get on the slopes in the early afternoon. Whilst our room wasn’t ready when we arrived at around 1pm, Valentine arranged so we could get changed into our skiing kit in their dedicated changing room and store our luggage in their dedicated luggage room so we could get skiing straight away. A nice touch. Peron, the owner and a French skiing champion as a youngster, helped us with our skis, boots etc. from their on site ski hire shop. The kit was perfectly fine for average skiers like us. Now for three really great skier friendly things Hotel Macchi does. 1. Your own dedicated locker with boot and glove warmers; 2. The skier entrance is 30m down some steps to the free bus service stop that takes you to Pre la Joux, the skiing area that opens up Portes de Soleil. 3. The hotel lays on a free shuttle service to Linga, another portal to the wider Chatel skiing area. Our Cosy room was perfectly fine, with a great view of the mountain. I’d always prefer a few more hooks on the wall for hanging jackets and goggles etc. but risking being picky here. We pre booked a full body massage in the Indian themed Ayurveda treatment area of the Spa and had an amazing time. Don’t be put off by the price, it is great value for money. The couple that run this service are great professionals and the whole experience was just perfect after our second day on the slopes. The breakfast was lovely, the staff including Alexander were really attentive. Make your own fruit juice and the seeded baguette were particular favourites, along with the egg station, the poached eggs were perfect. We were too late off the slopes for the pancake party except our last day, another really nice touch and it’s always good to see the owners mixing so kindly with the guests. The Spa is another perfect touch; the swimming pool big enough to enjoy a stretching swim, the jacuzzi relaxing, steam room and sauna small but they do the job. A perfect end to a decent ski day. Max was running the bar on a couple of our nights, and what a nice guy. Unassuming, warm and fun. Finally, it was nice to meet the resident Golden Retriever, being black lab owners ourselves. We’ll be back, it would be stupid not to.