Meribel's Mountain Restaurants

This review is intended to help you to choose where to eat at lunchtime in Méribel. All of these restaurants are accessible directly from the pistes or with a maximum of 50 metre walk.

First of all here are a few general tips. A trip to the Tourist Office to pick up the very small book called ‘Le Guide des Restaurants’ is well worthwhile. This booklet is designed to be carried with you and has all of the data on all of the restaurants in the valley (the phone number, opening times, type of food and price range). It’s presented in French and in well translated English.  What it doesn’t do is give any opinion of quality of food or service. For that, however, you can rely on Merinet. 

Once you’ve decided where lunch is going to be, a quick phone call around mid-morning to make a reservation will usually guarantee you one of the best tables. French people seem to be programmed to eat at exactly 1 o’clock. So even in low season, most restaurants (especially self-service) are busy at this time. It’s better to book a table for 12.30 with the added benefit of skiing on deserted slopes after lunch.

Contact details for all these restaurants (and links to their websites where possible) can be found under Restaurants, Mountain Restaurants or Gourmet Restaurants.

Enjoying the sun at Rhododendron

Rhododendron
This is a sunny spot in a convenient place just below the top of the Rhodos bubble. It is 3 restaurants in one really, as they have a self-service which opens at 11.30am with all the usual dishes like spaghetti bolognese, fricasée d’agneau, lasagne & entrecote steak in the €10 to €15 range. Their house wine is excellent at €9 a bottle (Cuvée Rhodos). Also, they have a little-noticed upstairs restaurant where you can order all of the same food but served à la carte for about €1 extra a dish. This part of the restaurant also has a little balcony of 4 tables for the sunny days. In 2007/08 they added a new service for those in a hurry; at the ground floor bar you can buy a ham, cheese or ham+cheese baguette or a piece of pizza for around €5. Couple that with a beer at €3.50 and a seat on a nice sunny deck for the ultimate cheap & cheerful, but good, lunch. Major benefit from previous years is that mobile phones work there now!

Trois Marches
2700 metres up, at the top of the Plattières 3 bubble, this huge self-service restaurant breaks the rule that ‘the higher you go the more it costs’. It’s a simple self-service with a massive sundeck covered in dozens of picnic tables. Steaks, paté, spaghetti & the like – you’ll find it difficult to spend more than €25 for 2 and one of the best views in Méribel gets thrown in for free. After lunch ski the ‘endless blue’ called Grand Lac then Pelozet all the way to the St Martin 2 chair lift & back into the Méribel valley.

Chrismaran
If you want something quick and cheap then this is the place to go. On the piste in front of the Olympic Sports Shop in Meribel Mottaret, this is ‘Panini City’. Unlike all the other cheap & cheerfuls in the vicinity where you have to queue up, just sit down at one of their tables and a waiter will take your order in seconds. I like the Panini Savoyard (melted cheese & dried meats like you get with raclette). 3 x Panini and 3 beers = €22!

Rastro
When you enter the 'town square' in Mottaret (where all the lifts start from), you can lock your skis up and walked along the row of a dozen or so shops & restaurants up towards the Hotel Mt Vallon and under the Ramées chair. Look at all the menus and maybe choose the Rastro on a nice sundeck with a view of Mt Vallon. Pick your table carefully though as 3 tables tend to get snowfalls from the skiers passing overhead on the chairlift! The food is pretty good and excellent value. It's amazing how the cost of a meal often halves if you just get off the piste by a few yards and often the quality is better. Entrecote frites plus cheese in filo pastry with a beer & half a bottle of wine for less than €40. Bargain!

Cosy interior at Le Martagon

Le Martagon
I found this place completely by accident one day, but I’m glad I did! When the snow cover is good down to the lowest levels in the resort, it may take your fancy to head off down the mountain towards Le Raffort & Les Allues at 1100m. This is a bit of an adventure on an itineraire route called ‘Villages’ and is something very different from a normal day's skiing. Head off down the Gelinotte piste from the top of the Roc de Fer chairlift  and a few hundred yards down there is a sign pointing left through the trees towards Le Raffort and Les Allues. These are the two intermediate stops of the massively long Brides Les Bains  to Meribel bubble which was put in place for the 1992 Olympics to get people in to the 3 Valleys (and get them to leave their cars behind). The track is not very steep and not very wide and absolutely beautiful. There are occasional narrow and/or steepish bits but if you can do a big snowplough to keep in control you can do it. However hard I’ve tried to get to Les Allues, I always end up at the bubble station of Le Raffort, one stop down from Meribel (perhaps you’ll manage it). Raffort is a thriving little village which is growing due to the proximity of the bubble (10 mins to Chaudanne). Lovely local style chalets at prices that are I’m sure considerably less than more central places, yet as close to Meribel as for example Courchevel 1550 is to 1850. Just next to the bubble station there is a gorgeous looking restaurant called La Martagon, just 50 metres from the lift station. Plat du Jour (paella with gigantic prawns and a complete leg of chicken last time I was there) will set you back €11.50 and, if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, the rest of the menu is very extensive and equally reasonably priced. Obviously you could also get there by taking the Olympe 3 bubble down from La Chaudanne to Le Raffort – a 10 minute ride to the best value food in the whole Méribel valley, by some distance.

Great Value at the Lodge

Lodge du Village
This restaurant is reached by skiing down the blue run called Lapin from the Altiport to the bottom of the Golf chairlift. It’s a 50 metre  walk across the car-park, and the restaurant is situated between a ski shop and the bakery. This is the small satellite village of Meribel Village with a number of new apartment buildings clustered round the centre. Lodge du Village is a fantastic value restaurant, with an Italian slant (delicious bruschetta, pizzas and all kinds of pasta dishes). They don’t seem to let this constrain them though as their great value plat du jour can vary from a Thai curry to turkey pie! There’s a bar upstairs with a little balcony with 4 tables for lunch plus a patio/sundeck at ground level with another 8 or so tables. Inside there is more seating but as it’s probably the sunniest spot in the whole of the 3 Valleys then outside is the place to be. Main courses are mostly around €10 to €15 although you can go mad and spend €20 on a filet steak. The Lodge is owned by Tim Wall, who also owns ‘La Taiga’ & ‘Pub Ski-Lodge’ in La Tania.

Great Views at Le Chardonnet

Le Chardonnet
Another restaurant that’s not easy to trip over but easy to find once you know how. It’s the ‘knife & fork’ sign on the lift map, just to the left of the middle station of the Pas du Lac bubble. The red runs called Marcassin & Niverole from the top of La Saulire both get close to it as long as you cross under the bubble, just as it leaves the middle station. It’s a very French menu with salads, pastas, tartiflette, crozets, snails and the like with all the main courses costing less than €20. The view on a nice day on their wrap-around balcony is one of the best and inside on a snowy day is fantastic with the beautiful paintings & decoration. It has the considerable selling point that after 2 hours of imbibing from their terrific wine list, you can stagger to the Pas du Lac bubble and be back in Mottaret in 10 minutes. Unusually, therefore, a restaurant for sunny March as well as a bolt hole for a 3 hour lunch on a horrid day too.

The Ever-Popular 'Ronnie'

Rond Point
At the top of the 1st stage of the  Rhodos bubble, you head downhill across the area known as Rond Point and tucked away on the right hand side is the huge sundeck, seating perhaps 200 people, of the restaurant called by the same name. The tables next to the piste are for à la carte service from an extensive menu. Pizzas are around €16 and the rest of the main courses are from €18 to €24. These vary from Rostis, to a ‘bucketful’ of Moules Marinière with frites and on to steaks done anyway you like them. The staff are all English speaking and the menus are also in English or French. It a very kids-friendly restaurant as they get their own menu and there’s lots of snow for them to play in while you wait for the food to arrive. Also on the sundeck is a self service counter if you just want a quick beer/burger/frites.

Enjoying the sun at Les Arolles

Hotel les Arolles
If you’ve skied into Méribel Mottaret via the green run called Perdrix, then you’ve gone past this hotel/restaurant and probably not given it a second glance. It’s a huge triangular shaped hotel on the left, just opposite the start of the Table Verte chairlift. It has a large, sunny, piste-side sundeck seating perhaps 150 people. The menu is fairly standard Savoyard with steaks, tartiflettes & soups together with a decent wine list but it stands out from the crowd by being in a nice place, with a nice view, with very reasonable prices and most importantly, the food is excellent.

Traditional Cuisine at the Adray Télébar

Adray Télébar
Just to the right of the confusingly spelt Adret chairlift below Rond Pont, this restaurant has a lovely sundeck which can be enjoyed from March onwards (when it’s in the sun) or inside earlier in the season. It’s an unashamedly Savoyard menu with canard (duck), faux-filet (sirloin steak), cotes d’agneau grillées aux herbes (grilled lamb with herbs) and boeuf bourguignon in the €25 to €35 range and Plat du Jour (dish of the day) at €23. Deserts are €8 a pop and the bill for 2 including wine will be close to €100. Worth it? Yep!

Le Coeur de Crystal
New back in 2007/08 is a restaurant called called ‘Le Coeur de Cristal’, just above Rond Point. From La Saulire fork right at every opportunity and you get to the top end of the Rhodos bubble. Follow the path down to the left of Rhodos bubble and ‘Le Coeur de Cristal’ appears on the right - a lovely big sundeck with white tablecloths and a menu for everyone. Plat du jour at €22.00 was roast beef & mashed potato or Navarin of lamb last time I was there. Hot goats cheese salads at €16.00 for those looking for a lighter lunch are on the menu every day and a nice bottle of Cote de Provence Rosé is €20.00. The waiters & waitresses are a bit French, convinced in that Gallic way that the customer is the least important person in the equation but relax - the chef’s a genius! The desert ‘trolley’, if I can call it that, is a 5 metre long table of the most appetising things you’ve ever seen. Order the 'Assiette Gourmande Desert' and the chef who made it all comes out to help you choose what to pile up on your plate. Expect to spend €90 for lunch for 2, including wine.