Yahoo News Taj-I-Mah, Les Arcs - hotel review
The newest arrival to the Paradiski area is Taj-I-Mah, the first five-star hotel in Les Arcs. It opened in December, named after a 115-carat diamond owned by the Iranian royal family. The hotel is positioned so that you can ski up to the door and across to the ski lift a few yards away.
There’s a top-notch spa, complete with pool, sauna, steam room and a Jacuzzi that allows you to peer out of huge windows and watch as the sun sets behind the Alps. And, of course, there’s a restaurant to match: Le Diamant Noir, run by Michelin-starred chef Eric Samson.
This is the kind of place where one wears one’s bank balance on one’s plate: the restaurant is dedicated to the “black diamond”, or truffle, with dishes including scallops with carpaccio of truffle, beef “à la ficelle” with truffle broth, and even truffle pannacotta.
There’s only one surprise: the price. Set menus start from €59 for three courses or €89 for five — a relative bargain around here. L’Atelier d’Eric, downstairs, is more reasonable still.
The rooms are luxurious, if almost too much so — a vast television takes over much of a wall, while the powerful heated floor persuaded me to sleep with the patio doors open.
The resort of Les Arcs is going all out to tempt Brits to keep returning to the area as Brexit looms. It has launched its own “Great British Celebration” with the entire resort decked out in the colours of the Union Flag, and is offering Brits-only travel deals, parties, Franco-British ski and sledge races and even a “Robin Hood tournament”. Then, of course, there are 425 km of runs in the Paradiski area. Perhaps, after all, that’s the ultimate luxury.
Details
Ski Solutions (020 7471 7749; skisolutions.com) offers seven nights half-board at Taj-I-Mah including flights and transfers from £1,515pp.
