Now we’re potentially on the brink of Covid vaccine success, it feels acceptable to start thinking about adventures one might take in 2021. And how better to ease yourself in than with a lakeside city break in Geneva, which opens its first all-suite luxury hotel, with glorious views of Mont Blanc, in the spring.

When La Reserve opened in Geneva almost 20 years ago, it was a breath of fresh air for the city’s high-end hotel scene. And while all the big international hotel groups have properties here – there’s a Mandarin Oriental, a Four Seasons and a Ritz Carlton, among others - La Reserve has remained the most exciting luxury hotel in the city, until now.

Oetker Collection, the people behind an elite little group of the world’s most exclusive hotels including Le Bristol in Paris, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes and London’s The Lanesborough, has just announced the opening of The Woodward next spring, in a brilliant waterfront location close to the Jetée des Pâquis on Quai Wilson, the road that runs along the north shore of Lake Geneva.

While it started life in 1901 as the grand Hôtel Bellevue, which regularly welcomed international guests, The Woodward, which was built in post-Haussmann style, has had several incarnations since then, including most recently being the headquarters of a Swiss bank. So now it comes full circle, returning to its roots in hospitality with a decadent classic-contemporary re-imagining of a hotel by French interior design du jour, Pierre-Yves Rochon, which feels in every way fitting for the times we are in.

With space and privacy more treasured than ever post-pandemic, The Woodward will offer lashings of both. Each of its 26 suites feels like a mini Paris apartment and feature separate living rooms with working Calacatta Oro marble fireplaces, spacious bathrooms with elegant Lalique fixtures and several with balconies and terraces.

A key element of The Woodward experience is to savour and enjoy the panoramic lake and mountain views, so ‘Wood’ is a reference to embracing the surrounding nature and as a project that has restored and transformed a historic building, ‘Ward’ is a nod to the hotel’s role as a protector of one of the city’s most important heritage buildings.

The hotel will have two French restaurants, each uniquely different from the other but both intrinsically linked. The first is an outpost of L’Atelier Joël Robuchon, which will feature the legendary late chef’s open kitchen concept, seat 36 around its counter and offer the option of private dining in two additional intimate rooms.

The other is Le Jardinier by chef and Robuchon disciple Alain Verzeroli, a trailblazer in the plant-forward movement, whose three restaurants in Tokyo have shared seven Michelin stars between them for eleven consecutive years. Le Jardinier will inhabit two glass-walled verandas that can be swept back for al fresco dining in warmer weather – how 2021.

The hotel will also launch Switzerland’s first Wellness Institute by Maison Guerlain spa with a 21-metre indoor pool (the longest in the city) and feature two bars, a tea room and a private digestif and cigar lounge housed in the building’s old bank vault, ideal for an intimate soiree.

While The Woodward will be the first to open its doors, elsewhere in Switzerland, there are other notable international hotel projects afoot. Most notably, Mandarin Oriental is taking over and re-launching the iconic Palace Hotel Lucerne and Six Senses with launch its first Swiss resort, Six Senses Crans-Montana, in the famously sunny southern ‘valais’ of the alps. So you won't be short on inspiration.

oetkercollection.com

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