The Best Ski Resort For: Designer Hotels

St Moritz, Switzerland

Its grand hotels may have recently been refurbished, but even a makeover of the Kulm and a state-of-the-art spa at the Badrutt's Palace (plus the availability of facelifts at the new Kempinski's beauty clinic) are not enough to give St Moritz in Switzerland – the site of this week's skiing World Championships – the image of a place with cutting-edge accommodation. Yet its outlying areas have a couple of interesting designer hotels, which is at least one more than any other resort can muster.

In Celerina, which has its own, under-used gondola to St Moritz's main Corviglia ski area, there's the Hotel Misani. Its ground-floor area is pleasant but unsurprising: there's a pastel-coloured modern restaurant called Voyage, an excellent, low-key osteria, and a stone-floor-and-old-pine reception area only slightly at odds with the hotel's cool exterior. But upstairs the design-style goes mad, in a most engaging way. In place of the standard Alpine cosiness, the Misani has rooms inspired by the world's hot spots, among them Arabian deserts and Australia's outback. It's a bold idea, but it works; and although the rooms are hardly de luxe, they are comfortable and relatively inexpensive.

About a dozen kilometres along the valley towards Italy is Pontresina, halfway between the St Moritz and Diavolezza ski areas. The original part of the Saratz hotel was built in 1875; but in 1995 the premises spread along the valley, with the addition of a cool, glass-and-stone reception area and a new, late-Modernist wing beyond. Behind the reception is a splendid pool area with views across to the 4,049m peak of Piz Bernina. And in the new wing are rooms so "designer" that the TV set can be wheeled into the side of a closet.

Hotel Misani (00 41 81 8 333314; www.hotelmisani.ch). Doubles from SFr150 (£67). Hotel Saratz (00 41 81 8 394000; www.saratz.ch). Doubles from SFr280 (£125).