Aman’s only house in France reopens on 10 December. The new thing waiting on the terrace is a charcoal grill.
The terrace at Aman Le Mélézin sits directly above the Bellecôte piste. Skiers pass below it all morning. From February, lunch up there is cooked at the table over glowing embers, and the hotel is calling it Yakiniku.
The format is communal. Appetisers first, then sliced cuts that each diner grills for themselves, with sides and a set of house sauces: apple koji yakiniku, egg yolk soy, shiso miso. Japanese A4 Wagyu strip loin is on the list alongside house-made tsubo-zuke harami and richly marbled hanasaki zabuton. Sittings run from noon to a quarter to three.
Lunch only, weather permitting, and non-residents can book. That last detail carries weight in Courchevel 1850, where the tables worth having are usually spoken for by people staying somewhere else. The terrace runs February to April.
Yakiniku on the Terrace, Aman Le Mélézin · Courtesy of Aman
The house
Adrian Zecha bought a small family hotel on this slope and handed it to Ed Tuttle. It opened in 1992 as Aman’s first property in Europe, and more than three decades on it is still the only one in France. Four storeys of pale timber and stone rise above the village, with Tuttle’s geometry pressed into the panelling and the lattice screens.
Twenty-eight chambres, suites and apartments. The Suite Le Mélézin runs to 93 square metres with a fireplace and two balconies. Suite La Vanoise takes a corner at 75. Four categories face the piste head on, and two of those, one chambre and one suite, put a private hot tub out on a south-facing terrace.
Skis off at the door, wagyu on the terrace by one. Courchevel has never been coy about that arrangement.
The Splendid EditTwo floors
The spa takes two of the building’s four floors. Indoor heated pool, jacuzzis, sauna, hammam, cold plunge. Morning wellness classes are scheduled daily and come with the room, as does the ski room with its valet service and the shuttle that circles Courchevel 1850 from seven in the morning until one at night.
Half board is standard here, and it stretches beyond the hotel to selected partner restaurants in the village. Akari keeps the Japanese kitchen indoors through the season. Children from two to eighteen have their own zone.
A suite terrace and its hot tub at dusk · Courtesy of Aman
The season
Les Trois Vallées is the largest linked ski area in the world and the Bellecôte feeds straight into it. The hotel lists its winter from 10 December 2026 to 4 April 2027, which puts the grill in the back half of that window, once the sun is high enough to make a terrace lunch sensible.
Lyon Saint-Exupéry and Geneva are each about two and a half hours by road. Courchevel has its own altiport for anyone counting minutes rather than kilometres.
Aman has spent years moving Japan around the map, into Kyoto, into Tokyo, and now onto a wooden deck in Savoie. The coals will be lit at noon. Below them, the piste keeps running.
Room categories, inclusions and opening dates are as published by Aman and remain subject to change. Details through aman.com.
Photography courtesy of Aman — © Aman, Aman Le Mélézin, France