In the latest of this series of interviews by Iain Martin, presenter of The Ski Podcast, he spoke with Luc Reversade, founder of La Folie Douce and inventor of ‘Clubbing at Altitude’
Bonjour, Luc. I can hear the sound of ski boots dancing on tables to a thumping bass as we speak, so my first question has to be ‘How long do your tables last’?
[Laughs] Our tables are made of hard redwood. They’re designed to be danced on again and again, even in ski boots. Some of them have lasted 15 years!
That’s roughly how long it is since La Folie Douce transformed après-ski in France and around Europe by introducing your ‘clubbing at altitude’ concept. What made you think the time was right for dance music on the slopes?
I spent eight years working as a ski instructor and every year more lifts would be upgraded. And the faster lifts meant that people would spend less time going up and more time going down.
I could see that they were starting to get tired more quickly and wanted to stop skiing earlier. Holidays were changing from being ‘les vacances des sports d’hiver’ (winter sports holidays) to simply ‘les vacances d’hiver’ (winter holidays).
Around the same time, I was travelling a lot, and I was inspired by the beach parties in Miami, and at the famous La Voile Rouge club on the beach in St Tropez, and by the dance music in Ibiza.
I wanted that in the mountains, not dull ‘prog rock’, so I brought EDM [electronic dance music] to the Alps and first put DJs in the booth in 2007.
Val d’Isère was the original La Folie Douce, but you’d already been running a restaurant on that location since the 1980s…
That’s right. I first came to the mountains in the 1960s and trained as a chef in Grenoble. But I always preferred being ‘front of house’. My first hotel was in Autrans in the southern French Alps, but the resort was too low, so I came to Val d’Isère.
In 1983, it was just a small mountain hut with no running water. It was a family business from the start, as I ran it with my mother. She worked in the kitchen, and I served the tables. That was the original La Petite Cuisine restaurant.
You operate five restaurants at this one venue now, and this year is the 30th anniversary of La Fruitiere – your first gastronomic restaurant – but what really makes La Folie Douce stand apart is the cabaret…
We started the cabaret in 2010 and our team are so talented. From the dancers to the singers, from the choreographers to the costume designers; they are all so creative. When the show’s on, you can’t look away.
Where did the name La Folie Douce come from?
There are too many mountain restaurants named after ‘marmottes’, ‘Mont Blanc’ or the various peaks around here. I didn’t want another boring name, so the ‘sweet madness’ of ‘La Folie Douce’ seemed right.
I understand there are plans for a big expansion for next winter?
Yes, that’s right. In Val d’Isère, La Folie Douce is already a massive operation: we have 180 staff, who serve up to 2,000 diners each day. And every morning we have to bring in three tonnes of food and drink.
But that’s about to get even bigger. Last year, we bought the old overnight storage area for the La Daille gondolas, which was no longer needed after the upgrade to the lift in 2019.
This is currently being converted and it’s going to add 1,000 seats for the new Le Café de la Gare, our future self-service restaurant that will replace the current La Petite Cuisine.
And you’re also bringing in activities for kids?
Parents will love this too. We’re creating the Atelier des Enfants – it’s an activity zone for kids aged six to 14 and it’ll open in December 2025.
The adults can go off to enjoy the cabaret while the kids can learn the skills that have made La Folie Douce such a success, including DJ lessons, fashion design and how to cook patisserie.
So, whether your child wants to be the next Fat Boy Slim, Stella McCartney or Paul Hollywood, it sounds like there’s something for them! What’s next for the Folie Douce empire?
We now have eight venues in Europe [Val d’Isère, Méribel, Les Arcs, Avoriaz, St Gervais, Chamonix, Val Thorens and Alpe d’Huez], but I’m confident that within the next two years we’ll have our first venue in North America.
We’ve been speaking with several resorts for a while now. I think the first will be at either Mammoth Mountain in California, or Big Sky in Montana.
I know you are semi-retired now [Reversade is 73], but it must be satisfying to know that La Folie Douce remains – as it started – a family business
The company is owned 50/50 by my sons, Artur (31) and César (29). They both have a lot of international experience of hospitality, from China, the USA and Canada. They handle the operations and my wife, Corinne, looks after the finances, admin and HR.
I don’t like the corporatisation of the Alps that we see today. So many ski resorts are owned by just a few big companies. We are the ‘Last of the Mohicans’. We’ll always keep it beautiful.
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