There’s a snobbishness that persists about Val Thorens. There’s the view that it’s “soulless” because it’s a comparatively new resort, having opened in 1971. But actually that was so long ago now that the first people born here are facing retirement.

One of these people is Aurélie Rey, the daughter of one of the founders of the resort, who runs the Alpen Art restaurant in the centre of town. Look Rey in the eyes and tell her that her food is “soulless” and you’ll see what a ridiculous notion this is.

Place Caron: The best people watching in the Alps

Also not soulless: Val Thorens’ main square Place Caron, where skiers heading to the slopes converge. I become obsessed with watching the goings on here over morning coffee from my prime position on my slopeside balcony at Hôtel Le Fitz Roy. It’s not breaking news to suggest town squares are good for people watching, although Place Caron is particularly vibey, even for ski resorts.

Two scenes converge in Val Thorens, at Europe’s highest ski resort. There are those with money who like the fancy but not ridiculously fancy collection of four and five-star hotels, and the young party types who come for the frankly overwhelming opportunity to ski in any direction you like, the music festivals and the nightlife.

Actually, there’s another set too. The vibe is so potent here that lots of people appear to have no interest in skiing at all. And not in the Courchevel ‘I’m spending a day shopping at Gucci’ way, more that this is just a functioning, authentic, lively town, that just so happens to be ear-bleedingly high.

The type of person who goes to Val Thorens is my type of human: into the finer things but not a dick about it. I watch every walk of life collide at Place Caron. An octogenarian couple from Monaco turning redder and redder as they squint below the sun at the gulf of mountains; a group of British lads bringing the tone down; and punctual Scandinavians frustrated by all the hubbub. They just want to ski past and get on (in their colourful ski suits they look like the fragmented colour flashes of a hologram). Unless you’re a thorough misery, or Parisian, this hodge-podge of French, Brits, Dutch, Scandinavians and, more recently, Americans means you don’t have to look far for conversation.

Why Val Thorens is the world’s best ski resort

How else should I talk about how great Val Thorens is? How about the kilometres of slopes that suit every type of skier, the near-guaranteed snow (we’re at a squiffy 2,300 metres), and direct connection to Les 3 Vallées, the largest ski area in the world, accessible via one pass?

Val Thorens has won world’s best ski resort for the tenth year out of thirteen at the World Ski Awards, voted for by the public and ski tourism professionals. That accolade drew me in the first place, helping me decide from dozens of similar-sounding places in the Alps that can feel hard to distinguish between.

Where to stay in Val Thorens: Hôtel Le Fitz Roy

Hôtel Le Fitz Roy is exactly the Val Thorens ticket: fancy but not stifling, it is a handsome slopeside property with all of the functional necessities, such as ski-in ski-out access, good local food, a nice spa, and a terrace on Place Caron, on which I spent more time than I’d like to admit surveying the action (yes, I skied a bit, but who wants those boots on for more than four hours a day?).

Vintage resort photos adorn the walls of the common areas, which are lovely and cozy and draw you in for late-afternoon board games, although I often ended up in the underground spa. Rooms are spacious and many have slopeside views, although the ones with the views up the mountain are fine too.

A highlight is meat straight from the al fresco winter barbecue, cooked by a man who makes it look perfectly ordinary to be barbecuing outdoors in sub-zero temperatures (it was boiling sunshine for most of our trip, which is common given the resort is often above the cloud line).

Caron 3200: The highest restaurant in Les 3 Vallées

We ascend nearly another thousand metres by cable car for our second most memorable meal, though no one is suffering in silence this time. The mountaintop Caron 3200 restaurant, opened just over a year ago, is the highest restaurant in Les 3 Vallées, with spectacular views that feel as if from a plane’s window. We peer down at the clouds and the spread of mountains into Italy and France from the wine bar. There, we have lunch, in the form of an enormous meat and cheese board. We prefer this to the restaurant which, although nice, is fuller – we had the wine bar to ourselves. Order the rest of the bottle and sack off the afternoon’s ski plans to gawp out at this for a few hours. I’d imagine the equally fancy Ice Q, formerly the highest restaurant in Austria and used in the James Bond film Spectre, is fuming.

Val Thorens nightlife: Pints, fondue and cover bands

In search of anything that might be called soulless, that night we shake off our boots and wander into town, past local markets and the O’Connell’s Irish pub and The Frog & Roastbeef rock bar where we lived up to the Brits abroad cliche by sinking altogether too many pints.

Here, Americans – there are a lot of them, as skiing prices Stateside rocket – seem to be enjoying the British cover bands playing Oasis and Blur tracks more than the rest of us, who can bear this type of place for an hour but are drawn to the exit by the inevitable opening chords for Wonderwall. Opposite more obviously touristic restaurants, including a themed Latin American restaurant called Favela, is La Chaumière, a quietly brilliant French restaurant with polished wooden walls and bench seating, where we enjoyed fondue.

In fact, Val Thorens is chocca with homely places to linger over; for a week there is equal amount of authenticity and heart here as in the more historical Alpine destinations.

Le Rooftop is another, where waitstaff are just the warmest and the food is generous: duck, great cuts of meat and more fondue. If you want to amp it up, swerve the more clublike apres ski and go for the ostentatious but not overly so La Maison, another of the resort’s oldest restaurants, with its iconic redback chairs and prime slopeside view, where the cocktails are good.

La Folie Douce: The Alps’ most famous party

If you want more of the boots-on-table British image of a French ski holiday, La Folie Douce on the Plein Sud run – a blue run, suitable for most skiers – is one of the Alps’ most lauded party spots. La Fruitière is the chic restaurant here: book lunch and pre-game ahead of a dance on the main bar floor, which becomes truly ridiculous by mid-afternoon. Expect champagne pourings, live singers (who stand out half naked in any weather, including blizzards), live saxophonists, dancers, and hundreds of wasted people dancing to electronic music on the tabletops.

For plenty more options, the main snow front of Rond Point des Pistes has more of this type of nonsense, plus sophisticated restaurants, and runs pretty much the length of the town.

Is Val Thorens worth it?

Other places do other things better: sports professionals love Val d’Isere for its no-nonsense ski focus; Meribel, with its treelines and stone-built 1900s restaurants, brings the proper history. But forget box-ticking and go for an all-round vibe at Val Thorens.