The 11 best restaurants in Tignes
On paper, Tignes appears to be remarkably short of good lunch spots on the mountain. However, that’s by no means the case once you realise that the largely purpose-built nature of the resort means that you can ski virtually to the door of most restaurants within its villages.
You can eat well in Tignes by day and night, thanks in part to Jean-Michel Bouvier. The former two-star Michelin chef and his family (including one-star chef Clément) own a clutch of the finest restaurants here and have consistently raised the bar on village cuisine over the past 20 years.
The resort’s links to Val d’Isère mean the on-mountain dining options during a ski holiday here extend beyond Tignes’ venues – a day out in Val’s direction is particularly appealing if you are looking for a lazy lunch in a picture-book mountain hut on the edge of the piste.
For further Tignes inspiration, see our guides to the resort's best accommodation and après ski.
Find a restaurant by location
In resort
On the mountain
In resort
Bazurto
This Val Claret restaurant features the explosive cuisine of Colombian chef Juan Arbelaez, and it’s appropriately housed in the new Andean-themed Ynycio luxury apartments. There’s a choice of two fixed-price menus, as well as à la carte: try monkfish flambé in rum or pescado chaqueta (sea bream cooked Colombian style, followed by colombitzu (tiramisu with Hechicera rum and Colombian coffee). When dinner ends, the tables are pushed back, and the music begins.
Contact: bazurtorestaurant.com
Price: £££
Ursus
Clément Bouvier’s Michelin-starred Ursus is housed within his family’s five-star Hotel Les Suites in Val Claret. The restaurant is named after the brown bear that once roamed the local mountains. Unable to take guests to the pine forest, Clément brought the trees to his dining room...all 390 of them. The thin trunks are arranged into copses around each walnut wood table. Despite the sylvan scenery, there’s still space for 45 covers.
A choice of set menus (there’s no à la carte) celebrates the forest and local natural surroundings. The chef spends much of his spare time foraging for plants and herbs. Each menu is a blind surprise on the night, although a preview of New Year’s Eve openly promises a carpaccio of scallops from Brittany with Imperial caviar followed by lobster and truffled chicken.
Contact: maison-bouvier.com
Price: £££
Le Kodo
This bar and restaurant in Tignes Le Lavachet is an Izakaya, the Japanese take on a gastro-pub with Pan-Asian fusion cuisine that makes a welcome change from the cheese-with-everything menus of too many establishments in the region. You eat at wooden tables with stools. The kitchen is open from 4pm to 9pm, serving such delights as spicy fried calamari with Japanese chilli and miso mayonnaise, followed by Thai green curry or chicken katsu.
Contact: kodobar.com
Price: £ to ££
Mendikoa
Located slightly off the beaten track in the Tovière area of Tignes Le Lac/Le Lavachet, this is a proper French brasserie with a young and enthusiastic team led by Nicolas in the kitchen and Anthony at front of house. Dishes on the regularly changing blackboard menu inevitably include fondues and tartiflette. However, if you are cheesed off, try moules farcies (baked mussels stuffed with parsley, butter, and garlic) followed by slow-cooked pork with a tarte of winter vegetables or Râble de lapin lardé (rabbit cooked with bacon).
Contact: restaurants-ski.com
Price: ££
On the mountain
Le Palet
Le Palet is the revamped mountain restaurant on the Col du Palet side of Tignes. It now comes under the sophisticated umbrella of Maison Bouvier. In 2023/24, the quality of food and service improved dramatically with simple dishes such as roast chicken and pasta. Live music on the sundeck aided the digestion. The interior was in need of a complete makeover, but all that – and more – has been promised for this season.
Contact: maison-bouvier.com/le-palet-restaurant
Price: ££
Closest lift: between the top of the Tichot and the bottom of the Grattalu chairs.
La Pignatta
Prices are surprisingly reasonable in this Italian restaurant in Val Claret. To enhance the flavour, the pizza dough is allowed to res’ for 72 hours before cooking. Amazing pizzas apart, there’s pork slow roasted in honey and every conceivable type of fondue, raclette, and tartiflette. While it’s not on the piste as such, you can click out of your skis and take a short walk across Val Claret. After lunch, it’s another brief stroll to return to a lift. La Pignatta is also open for dinner.
Contact: pignatta-tignes.fr
Price: ££
Closest lifts: Fresse and Tufs
La Table du Panoramic
You don’t really expect to find a truly gastronomic restaurant at 3,032m, but here we are, swapping ski boots for slippers and taking our seats in the heavily beamed dining room decorated with sheepskins. For two heady years this was the highest Michelin-starred restaurant in the world. While it lost this accolade in 2019, La Table is still highly regarded for its wood-fired sharing dishes of meat and fish. Try succulent pigeon or a whole roasted turbot. Owner Jean-Michel Bouvier, himself a former two-star Michelin chef, oversees the kitchen. His son Clément now has a Michelin star at his Ursus restaurant in the family-run five-star Hotel Les Suites down in Tignes.
Contact: maison-bouvier.com/le-panoramic
Price: ££ to £££
Closest lifts: the funicular back down or the cable car to the top of the glacier.
Panoramic (self-service)
If you’re the only self-service on top of a 3,000m mountain with a glacier frequented daily by thousands of skiers for most of the year, you need to run a pretty slick operation. Mercifully, these days, that’s what this is – the proper name is La Cantine des Bouviers, but no one calls it that.
Under the stewardship of Maison Bouvier, you can lunch on perfect al dente pasta, grilled meats, salads, or the dish of the day at reasonable prices. Service is exceptionally friendly. The only grumble for those in ski boots is the tortuously steep staircase down to the loos.
Contact: maison-bouvier.com/le-panoramic
Price: £ to ££
Closest lifts: the funicular back down or the cable car to the top of the glacier.
L’Armailly
The piste all the way down to Tignes Brévières at 1,550m usually stays in good condition right to the end of the season and it’s a fun outing for lunch from Val Claret, or indeed from Val d’Isère. The old farmhouse in the heart of the village dates back to the 18th century. The cuisine is essentially homemade and rustic French with a few modern touches: snails, frogs’ legs, veal kidneys and salads, as well as steaks and pasta. Fish and chips and tuna tartare form the foreign fare.
Contact: armailly.com
Price: ££
Nearest lift: Take the Brévières and Les Boisses gondolas back up the lift system.
Ô1800
Tignes Les Boisses is a cheaper base than its much higher cousins and this is reflected in the prices at Ô1800, which is named after the altitude of the village. But you can enjoy the easy run down to here and take the lift back up after lunch. If staying in an apartment, it’s a warm and cosy spot for a night out. The restaurant is in the heart of the Kalinda village, and Gina and Hadrien specialise in traditional local cuisine. They also have a wine bar and a delicatessen. Specialities include raclette and fondue, but try the snail casserole and the slow-cooked lamb shank. Some exciting and unusual Savoie wines are among the 220 on the list.
Contact: restaurant1800.fr
Price: £ to ££
Closest lift: Les Boisses gondola.
La Table de Jeanne
The last of the Bouvier restaurants in Tignes is in some ways the best. This is where you’ll find founder, Jean-Michel, checking the menu and the kitchen in the evening after he has come down from the Panoramic. La Table de Jeanne is named after his grandmother, a cook in Chambéry in the 1956, from whom he learned his trade. His daughter Emma is in front of house, and chef Hugo Colombo creates some pretty special Savoyarde cuisine in a warm farmhouse ambience.
Contact: maison-bouvier.com/table-de-jeanne
Price: £££
How we choose
Every restaurant in this curated list has been expertly chosen by our ski expert, following years of experience on the slopes. We cover a range of budgets, from piste-side huts to Michelin-starred restaurants – to best suit every skier’s taste – and consider the food, service, best tables, atmosphere and price in our recommendations, with options both in the resort and on the mountain. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest opening and provide up to date recommendations.
