Arc 2000
Food & shopping
1 / 1Savoyard deli on the Place Olympique at the foot of the Lanchettes chairlift, ski-in or on foot.
Cheese and charcuterie cut to order, wine, genepi, honey and jams, plus a bread and pastry counter.
Also a proper lunch stop: sandwiches and paninis made to order, soups, hot dogs, waffles, rotisserie chicken.
Fondue and raclette mixes prepared daily.
Vacuum packing for anything you're taking home.
Getting here & around
0 / 0Ski essentials
3 / 3The French national ski school's Arc 2000 branch has around 130 instructors and high-mountain guides.
Group and private lessons in skiing and snowboarding, plus off-piste, telemark, freestyle, snowshoeing, handiski and more.
Beginners start on the Arc 2000 snow front at the Eldorador carpet. Based at Résidence Les Gentianes.
Book well ahead for school holiday weeks.
Opening hours listed are for the ESF Arc 2000 office. Lesson times vary.
Buy, collect and recharge your Domaine de Montagne Les Arcs / Peisey-Vallandry and Paradiski lift passes.
Self-service available.
Ski and snowboard hire, sales and a repair workshop on the Arc 2000 snow front - Place Olympique, opposite the Lanchettes chairlift.
Boot-fitting service and a big retail floor, as well as rentals.
On foot from Arc 1950 via the Cabriolet gondola.
Open daily December to April; booking online in advance is cheaper than walking in.
Eat & drink
9 / 9
Restaurant in a distinctive bubble-shaped building in Arc 2000, with big views of the surrounding peaks.
Unusually broad menu - pizzas, tapas and ham platters through to foie gras, gambas and seafood.
Good coffee stop ☕️
Tables inside and out. Sun loungers for the warmer days ☀️
Gets busy at peak times.
A former hunting relay of the Duchy of Savoie, now one of Les Arcs' institutions - a stone-and-wood chalet at Pré Saint-Esprit, at the foot of the Pré Saint-Esprit and Comborcière chairlifts.
Its name is taken from Jack London's adventure novel "Smoke Bellew" (1912).
Ski in, drive in (it's right on the Arc 2000 road, with parking), or take the inter-station navette to the Pré Saint-Esprit stop.
Book ahead.
On the Arc 2000 snow front since 2009, and open from breakfast until 2am — croissants at 8, plats du jour and burgers at lunch, then après with local beers, planches, and DJs as the light goes.
Live music Fridays, a sofa corner for hot chocolate after a cold day, and a vintage-flavoured corner shop selling beanies and sweatshirts.
Ski or walk straight in.
All-day restaurant in the centre of Arc 2000, at La Cime des Arcs.
Coffee and pastries from 8am, good coffee, straightforward lunches, and longer dinners - Savoyard cooking with local produce and a chalkboard of daily specials.
Family-friendly and used to children.
Mountain restaurant at the foot of the Pré Saint-Esprit chairlift, in the forest with the Mont Blanc massif opposite.
Two options under one roof: La Chiminéa for table service - Savoyard specialities, daily specials, homemade desserts and a cheeseboard - and a self-service canteen for a quicker stop.
Central fireplace inside, deckchairs on the terrace.
Reachable on skis, on foot, or by car, and there's a free shuttle from Arc 1950, so non-skiers can join the group for lunch.
In ski season, open daily, plus Thursday and Friday evenings for groups of ten or more by reservation.
The bar and restaurants of Arc 2000's five-star hotel, open to non-residents and worth knowing about as a place to sit down.
The lounge bar (open 8am-11pm) has a fireplace inside and a big south-facing terrace looking over the ski area - good for coffee, lunch, or an après drink, with music some evenings.
For a proper meal, there's L'Atelier, a brasserie doing Savoyard specialities, cheese and grilled meats with a ski-in terrace, and La Table du Taj-I Mah for a more formal dinner.
Ski-in, ski-out by the Cabriolet gondola.
Rooftop restaurant and wine bar on top of the Résidence Aiguille Rouge in Arc 2000, looking straight across at the Aiguille Rouge summit.
It's easy to miss from the street: go into the building and take the stairs or lift up to the roof.
Lunches on the sunny terrace with live music in the afternoons, then a proper evening restaurant inside: traditional and Savoyard cooking built on local produce, including Beaufort from master cheesemaker Bernard Mure-Ravaud, Alpine charcuterie and a serious wine list.
Vegetarian options, and wheelchair accessible. Book for dinner.
Café at 2,700m above Arc 2000, with a big terrace set up for a proper stop, whether you're skiing or not.
Tramezzini, croque-monsieurs, homemade soups and wood-fired bread, with organic, fair-trade and local produce.
The highest of the Falcoz places, and the view goes with the altitude.
Health & emergencies
1 / 1Doctors' surgery on the Place Olympique, above the bus station.
General medicine, trauma care and on-site radiology, so ski injuries are dealt with here rather than sending you down the valley.
Medical emergency: call 112
Activities
3 / 3
The top of the valley and worth the trip, whether you ski or not.
Ride the Varet gondola, then the summit cable car to 3,226m and the view is simply the best in Les Arcs - Mont Blanc, the Vanoise, the whole of the Haute Tarentaise below you.
You don't have to ski down: go up, take it in, ride the lifts back. If you do ski it, the run to Villaroger is one of the longest in the Alps - 7km and over 2,000 vertical metres - one of the top five vertical descents anywhere in the Alps, starting steep and black off the summit, for strong skiers only.
The lift will close in high winds.
Go early, before the cable car queue builds.
The big Les Arcs letters, out on the snow with the peaks behind - good group photo spot.
Best in the morning before the light flattens and the crowds arrive.
Six bowling lanes, six pool tables, rally simulators and an arcade in the Résidence Les Gentianes on the Place Olympique, with a cocktail bar and sport on the big screens.
Live music and DJ nights on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
If you have the Essential or Premium Pass, one game bought gets you a free game on Saturdays or Mondays.
Latest for Arc 2000
All valley news →The French Alps host the Winter Olympics from 1 to 17 February 2030, followed by the Paralympics from 1 to 10 March, and two of the venues are on the Tarentaise's doorstep.
Val d'Isère hosts the alpine skiing, 30 minutes up the D902 from Sainte-Foy. La Plagne takes the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton on the Albertville 1992 track, directly across the valley from Les Arcs. Courchevel gets ski jumping and more alpine racing, plus the para alpine and para snowboard events. Alpes 2030 - Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games +2
For anyone booked into Villaroger, Sainte-Foy or Les Arcs that February, expect the valley to be busy, the Bourg-Saint-Maurice funicular and buses fuller than usual, and accommodation booked out early. It also means the quieter villages between the venues will be exactly where you want to be.
Ticketing and volunteer sign-ups haven't opened yet; the organising committee's site at alpes2030.org is where those will be announced.
The venue plan is still subject to final IOC confirmation, so treat the details as provisional for now.
Read the full piece →