Why go?
Art hotels aren’t exactly a new thing, but it took two of Europe’s most dynamic gallerists to really nail the concept. Opening in 2019, The Fife Arms rapidly became one of the UK’s most sought-after small hotels—partly for its enviable, 16,000-strong collection but also for its artful take on food, Scottish culture, and sheer, arms-wide-open sense of hospitality. Chesa Marchetta is the long-awaited sequel, bringing Manuela and Iwan Wirth’s creative ethos back to their Swiss homeland.
Set the scene
You won’t find many hotels with a dog as affable as Basilica, the black labrador belonging to general manager Federica Bertolini, which will pad over and settle down by your feet at the fireplace, particularly when lunch is served. Guests behave in much the same way, slouching on sofas after a day on the slopes, browsing the art books spread across tables in the main lounge, and helping themselves to something from the cake table. With “Three Little Pigs” planks over the windows, letting in fingers of sunlight, and timber-lined walls, it’s quite the bucolic Swiss chalet scene, apart from the huge metal spider scuttling down the wall—a piece by the late, great Louise Bourgeois. The Wirths’ art collection is spread around the hotel, from the jet-black bronze Santa by Paul McCarthy, standing guard by the entrance, and a set of aluminum luggage by Indian artist Subodh Gupta outside my room to Giacometti sketches and Alpine scenes. At the main door, as if waiting to be let out for a hike, is a 19th-century painting of a well-fed lad ready with his knapsack.
The backstory
Manuela Hauser and Irwin Wirth, the Swiss gallerists behind the ArtFarm collection, are on a roll right now. A flagship gallery is set to open in Mayfair in 2027, along with a debut art space in Palo Alto, California. Those will be followed by another Swiss launch, Hotel Castell, further down the Engadin Valley in Zuoz. But Chesa—their second hotel after 2019’s Fife Arms in Scotland—is a very personal project; a “Rosebud” moment that draws on their own history. The building has been here in some shape or form since the 16th century, and was run as a restaurant with rooms for over 60 years by the Godly sisters, Christina and Maria. Anyone and everyone would stop by, including conductor Herbert von Karajan and artist Marc Chagall; Greta Garbo once visited, hidden behind huge sunglasses, to drink tea quietly in one corner. And it’s where Irwin took Manuela for their first date—he’d been coming to the area since he was a boy, hiking the mountains with his father.
The cowshed and hay barn is now the bar, but the farmhouse spirit of the Chesa endures. Inspired by the stube, the traditional Alpine living room—the very definition of cozy, with its timber-wrapped walls and warming stove—the Paris-based LaPlace studio chose furniture from around the region, from a burl-elm 18th-century bed to wardrobes, trunks, and cupboards. Despite just having opened in January 2026, it has a wonderful sense of continuity and having been lived in. “We never wanted the house to impress; we wanted it to protect,” Luis LaPlace tells me. “The project was about listening—to the valley, to the wood, to the silence—and allowing the house to remain itself.”
The rooms
To misquote Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of arve pine in the morning.” You wake up to the scent of the wood, sourced from the region and used to make the paneling and ceilings of all 13 bedrooms, and it follows you around all day. Each bedroom has been individually furnished, with pieces ranging from oxblood-red chests and thick-cut bed frames to claw-foot lamps and chubby, boucle-clad club chairs. Bobble-edged lace curtains were made by nuns in a nearby convent, while blankets are from a local weaving collective. (The Valencia metro tiles lining the bathrooms are just about the only element intruding from the outside world.) Like the rest of the spaces, the bedrooms act as miniature galleries for the Wirths’ collection—mine had snowflakes stenciled on the rough white walls and 19th-century mountain scenes; Gerhard Richter’s pencil drawings of Sils can be found in the family suite on the top floor.
Food and drink
With his colored beanies, head chef Davide Degiovanni resembles one of Steve Zissou’s Life Aquatic crew—he’s a constant presence around the hotel, from casual lunches served fireside in the lounge to special events in the private dining room. He describes his approach as “mountain-light,” sourcing ingredients from local farmers and nearby Italy to make his signature, buttery gnocchi, blush-red salads of radicchio and barley, and a cavolo nero ragu to twirl pappardelle in. Bergamot scents a dish of Alpine trout and cauliflower purée, while one of his team is a forager from the region, and brings back clutches of pine needles and wild spinach. It’s not always been straightforward—“in Switzerland, it’s easier to buy prawns from Mozambique than fish from a local lake,” the chef remarks—but he’s looking forward to spring and the wild spinach, flowers, and nettles that grow everywhere. Against the rough plaster walls and candlelight of the restaurant, the restaurant dishes resemble still lifes by a Dutch Old Master. Cocktails at the bar also draw on local ingredients, such as the Truffle, made with white rum, black-truffle oil, and honey cordial, and the cachaça-based Pumpkin, with grapefruit juice, pumpkin caramel, and cedar tea.
The service
For those used to well-ironed Swiss formality, the Chesa Marchetta crew are refreshingly down to earth, all dressed in orange gingham shirts and gathered up from around Europe—some having worked in The Fife Arms, others from the Engadine region itself. Like the Fife, there’s that easy-going, just-drop-by sense of a welcome, whether you’re here just for a cocktail at the bar or spending several days.
The neighborhood
Neighboring St Moritz was adopted in the 19th century by all those jolly-hockey-stick Brits, who introduced skiing and tobogganing, but little Sils Maria has always been more cerebral. On a hillside above are the turrets of the village’s first hotel, the family-run Waldhaus, which has drawn in Joseph Beuys, Herman Hesse, and David Bowie over the years. Near the Chesa is the war-time home of anti-fascist writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, and the house where Nietzsche lived for seven years, its windows staring unflinchingly at the sheer peaks opposite, which can be hiked and skied depending on the season. The village of Sils Maria adjoins the village of Sils Baselgia—notable for its golden-spired church—and rather bizarrely the two are separated by a traffic gate. For a primer, watch the 2014 film The Clouds of Sils Maria, starring Juliette Binoche.
Who comes here?
Compared to The Fife Arms, where the clientele is almost all guests, at the Chesa you’re likely to meet several Engadine locals and regular visitors. Salopettes and ski helmets make frequent appearances, along with couples in thick, round spectacles who might be architects—and nearby resident Norman Foster, who most certainly is. I’m sitting at the bar when a man walks in with his family and asks, excitedly, if I skate. “There’s black ice on the lake—which means it feels like skating on clear water. I’ve been coming here for 50 years, and it’s only happened a handful of times!”
Eco-effort
Salvaged wood has been used wherever possible, while 18 ground-source heat pumps provide energy-efficient heating. Food waste is repurposed for biomass energy in partnership with the village of Sils.
Accessibility
One ground-floor room is fully accessible, and a lift serves all other floors except the suite. The restaurant and bar are also fully accessible.
Anything else to mention?
If Federica’s around, ask her to arrange a walking tour of the village, on which you’ll hear all about the long tradition of patisserie bakers here, the art of sfgraffito—a technique popularized during the Renaissance, etched on house façades like runes—and visit the lovely library with its collection of writers associated with the area and picture window looking over the lake: just the place to sit and write your own novel.