Eat
Ikigai
European ski resorts – particularly those in the Alps – tend to be best associated with lashings of cheese and meat. While you can find those in Laax, you’re just as likely to eat somewhere like Ikigai, where steaming bowls of noodles or hearty curries warm the cockles after a day on the slopes. In classic Laax style, you might just find yourself dining next to two members of the Japanese national snowboarding team.
Rocksresort, Via Murschetg; laax.com
Riders Restaurant
Riders restaurant
If you need any sign that Laax is not like other resorts, simply head for Riders Restaurant, the in-house dining spot at the eponymous hotel, which is filled with revellers who look like they’ve all just come from a Carhartt sample sale. The most lauded restaurant in Laax doesn’t serve fondue, nor does it peddle out big bowls of slow-cooked meats. Here, the entire menu is vegetarian, although with ingredients like locally foraged mushrooms, fregola and Jerusalem artichoke, you’ll hardly miss being carnivorous for the night.
Riders Hotel, Via Murschetg 1; ridershotel.com
Segneshütte
If you’re used to on-mountain fare being more hearty and warming than elegant and considered, think again. Segneshütte sits in the middle of the Unesco World Heritage Site Tectonic Arena Sardona at the top of the FlemXpress – a revolutionary new gondola where you call a specific car to a select destination from five potential stops, keeping the flow efficient and bypassing unnecessary and time-consuming stops. The hut itself is like an Ikea inspiration board come to life, modern and clean yet still managing to be cosy, while the menu is packed full of locally sourced ingredients. It’s the perfect place to fuel up before taking the lengthy but whoop-inducing route back across to Laax. Alternatively, ski down to Flims and take a quick bus back into town.
Höhenweg, 7017 Flims; segneshuette.ch
Segneshütte
Grandis Ustria da Vin
An oenophile’s dream, Grandis Restaurant looks as much like a well-stocked wine store as it does a restaurant. One of the more classic spots in town for a post-ski feast, this is one to centre around what’s in the glass. With more than 1,000 bottles, many local wines, there’s a fair few to choose from. Meat eaters will be best placed to opt for a red – the woodfire-grilled meats are cracking and need a big bottle to hold up to them.
Via Murschetg 17/Haus G; grandislaax.ch
Restaurant Ustria La Cauma
Fancy getting out of town? Take the forest walk through to Restaurant Ustria La Cauma. Sitting on the crystalline, tree-fringed waters of Lake Cauma, the recently renovated restaurant’s wraparound glass windows let you take in every inch of the view. Order the capuns, a classic local dish that sees Swiss chard leaves delicately wrapped around spätzle dough and dried meat and poached in a cream and parmesan broth. A hot tip, though, if the lift is out of action, try not to eat every last bite – it makes the hike back up the hill something of a struggle.
Caumasee, 7018 Flims; ustrialacauma.ch
Drink
Indy Bar
Indy Bar is cool. Almost intimidatingly so. With an energy that feels more akin to a surf town than a ski resort, this is the kind of bar that has a halfpipe in the basement just in case you fancy taking a turn on your skateboard in between pints. Disco balls hang from the ceiling, antique rugs dot the floor and a corner is occupied by a foosball table. Walking through the doors is a little like stepping from the Alps to California. Leave your tight, fur-trim jackets at the door – this is baggy board-style kit territory.
Via Murschetg 15; laax.com
Galaaxy
Galaaxy
Rising like a space station out of the clouds, Galaaxy is a skyline-dominating mission control for the Laax ski area. The modern, quasi-camouflage exterior makes way for retro-meets-the-future interiors that feel a little like a 1980s imagining of the year 2000. At the centre of it all sits a powder pink-hued circular cafe and bar with 240-degree views of the slopes beyond and – perhaps most importantly – front-row seats to Laax’s infamous halfpipe, which is the biggest in the world. This is one of the resort’s greatest draws and our visit falling just a few days before the Laax Open means we luckily get to watch some of the best freeriders in the world make their way down its precipitous lengths while we sip on cold beers.
Crap Sogn Gion; galaaxylaax.com
Riders Club
Less thumping clubs churning out Europop and more DJ sets in intimate bars, Laax is a little less of a party hotspot than other European resorts. If you do fancy dancing the night away though, then Riders Club is the place to do it. Regular DJ sets soundtrack beanie-clad snowbunnies into the wee hours.
Riders Hotel, Via Murschetg 1; ridershotel.com
Do
Ski or snowboard
Snowboarding at LAAX
While Laax has many draws – great hiking trails, incredible scenery and world-class mountain biking, the town’s greatest pull is its ski resort. The combined Flims Laax area has 224 kilometres of slope, 29 lifts, five snowparks and a majority of slopes sitting above 2,000 metres, making it an absolute haven for carving corduroy. It may have a reputation for being one of the greatest freestyle destinations in the world – and for good reason – but the slopes here are just as suitable for skiers who are a little more slalom than sliding rails.
Freestyle Academy
Laax was born out of a desire to bring the surf culture of California’s beaches to the Swiss mountains, and this is most clearly evident at the town’s revolutionary Freestyle Academy. A genuine indoor playground, this cavernous, subterranean space is home to a halfpipe, a skate bowl, numerous trampolines and landing pads, slides, parkour space and more. It’s designed to help budding snowboarders train when they can’t be on snow, whether it’s practising tricks on skateboards or launching themselves off trampolines in an effort to perfect a mid-air flip. Kids as young as a few years can come here and start to get a feel for the highs and lows of snowboarding. Equally, adults can visit to try a new sport or just simply indulge their inner child.
Via Murschetg 17; freestyleacademy.com
Stay
Rocksresort
Rocksresort
Forget wooden beams, shearling throws and North Pole-approved accents – in keeping with Laax’s unconventional approach, Rocksresort brings cubist architecture to the Alps. Another area in which Laax is breaking from the norm is the resort’s environmental approach. Rocksresort is a key example of that – as the winner of World’s Best Green Ski Hotel in 2018, thanks to its use of sustainable materials in construction and reliance on hydroelectricity to power the building, there is nowhere more quintessentially Laax to stay.
With buildings dotted around the town, plus gondola-side ski storage so you don’t have to lug your long sticks backwards and forwards every morning and evening, as well as apartment-style rooms that offer both space and in-room cooking facilities in case you want to stay in charge of your catering, you have the perfect base for your ski holiday. Interiors are an education in restrained luxury; at once elegantly austere yet equally comfortable and cosy.
Via Murschetg 15, 7032 Laax, Switzerland; rocksresort.com
