Clinique La Prairie

Founded in 1931 by Dr Paul Niehans on the shore of Lake Geneva at Clarens-Montreux, and arguably the place where luxury medical wellness was invented. Niehans — a surgeon and endocrinologist, and a grandson of Emperor Frederick III of Germany — pioneered cell therapy here, and by the 1950s the clinic had become the destination for a certain kind of international patient.

The modern operation rests on four pillars: medical, nutrition, movement and wellbeing. Programmes run one or two weeks, with Revitalisation — exclusive to Montreux — and Master Detox as the flagships, alongside newer additions including Brain Potential. Some fifty medical specialists support diagnostics that extend to genomic and epigenetic testing.

Scale is part of the character. Thirty-eight rooms and suites, gardens, lake and Alps beyond — closer to a private house than an institution, which is deliberate and much imitated since.

What it is not is austere. Master Detox includes fasting and juice days, and Healthy Weight runs on calculated calorie restriction — but neither is a fasting cure in the Buchinger sense, and the register throughout is luxury with medicine inside it rather than the reverse. Guests who want the stripped-back Austrian or German approach will find this a different proposition entirely.

It also sits at the very top of the market, and guests should be clear about what they are buying: a near-century of institutional knowledge, unusual diagnostic breadth, and a setting that removes every friction. Whether that combination is worth the premium over a serious clinic at a lower price is a personal calculation, and worth making deliberately before booking.