BY CLAIRE GARBER,
Mouthwatering images courtesy of The Boutique Chalet Company and Morgan Jupe
IT’S RARE TO QUALIFY INTO A PROFESSION ONLY TO HAVE THE PARAMETERS OF YOUR CAREER KEEP CHANGING, AND NOWHERE IS THIS MORE APPARENT THAN THE ROLE OF THE CHALET CHEF. OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES THE CHEF’S ROLE HAS UNDERGONE A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION AND RECENTLY THERE HAS BEEN YET ANOTHER SEISMIC SHIFT. WELCOME TO THE EVER-CHANGING WORLD OF THE CHALET CHEF.
A CHEF’S LIFE
It used to be so much simpler. Follow a weekly set menu. Create food in bulk. Carb-load guests to an early sleep and keep the evening well-oiled with carafes laden with red wine. Dining experiences in ski chalets used to be the equivalent of pub grub on steroids; a high-altitude feeding frenzy for a bunch of happy skiers grateful for any dinner that didn’t require their post-piste input.
Quickly the chalet dining experience evolved. Fine dining experiences were expected, as were champagne-soaked evenings and decadent sugar-filled afternoon teas. The GAP year student ‘chefs’, hungry for piste time rather than kitchen time, were replaced by actual chefs, with legitimate qualifications and aspirations far removed from fondue and shepherd pies. Guests lolloped home from their annual ski holiday several pounds heavier having eaten the equivalent of seven Michelin-starred meals in one week. Skiing wasn’t the only extreme sport.
Now the goal posts have changed again. Just when those Head Chefs got used to catering to the fine dining high life, we, the ever-demanding consumer, started arriving with lots of requests. Armed with doctors’ notes and pallid complexions, we explained that we needed something entirely different. Health was the new fashion. Allergy was the new power word and we had food intolerances coming out of our ears. So what does the life of a Chalet Chef look like now? We decided to ask two of the Alps’ finest luxury ski chalet companies about this ever-evolving role.
THE SHIFT
The Boutique Chalet Company – Nick Lyon Dean, Head Chef
“When I started working in chalets 16 years ago, it was very rare for people to have allergies and other dietary requirements. You’d have a few vegetarians and maybe a couple of serious allergies per season. Nowadays if you have a week without any dietary requirements it’s a rarity.”
Morgan Jupe – Josh Morgan, Managing Director
“Agreed. A few years ago you might be faced with one or two weeks where one person in a group had specific requirements. Years before, even vegetarians weren’t commonplace, which seems absurd looking back. By contrast, last winter season I don’t think we had one week without some kind of specific dietary requirement.”
THE IMPACT
The Boutique Chalet Company – Nick Lyon Dean, Head Chef
“The change has definitely made work more challenging! But I think for the benefit of everyone. 15 years ago you could produce the same menu week after week and only make alterations for dietary requirements every once in a while. The danger is that it’s quite easy to become bored with that scenario. Now it is much harder to follow the same menu plan one day to the next. Often you have three or four different dietaries in any given week, so there is a pressure to be much more creative. I think guests can definitely tell when their chef is being stimulated creatively and that makes the experience for them all the more enjoyable.”
FLOURISHING CREATIVELY
Morgan Jupe – Alexandra Blagdon, Head Chef
“When you work in a restaurant you are always working to set menus so there are far fewer curve balls. In the mountains it is so much more challenging, with changing clients and changing needs. Your clients are also dining with you every night for seven nights. That’s a lot of meals and a lot of requirements! Someone might be diabetic, several might be lactose or gluten intolerant, vegan, vegetarian, and perhaps someone is training for a marathon. You need to create something that works for everyone.”
The Boutique Chalet Company – Nick Lyon Dean, Head Chef
“Having a multitude of dietary requirements definitely provides a catalyst for creativity. For many chefs, the chance to work in a chalet gives them the opportunity to be more creative and imaginative than working in a restaurant ever could.”
THE EDUCATIONAL LEARNING CURVE
Morgan Jupe – Alexandra Blagdon, Head Chef
“I was vegetarian for some time and I did a lot of research into the different food groups, food preparation processes, the chemicals in meats and dairy and modern farming methods. There is so much to learn. Dietary requirements push us to understand food much more deeply and also I find we make so much more from fresh. We work to create meals that don’t make people feel excluded. We work to ensure people don’t feel punished due to their allergy or intolerance. So it is both educational and inspirational. Showing clients that good food can taste great gives me a massive sense of achievement. The chef’s role is no longer that of production line, but of constant creator.”
THE NEGATIVES – SPEAK YOUR TRUTH
The Boutique Chalet Company – Nick Lyon Dean, Head Chef
“Unfortunately in recent years I’ve noticed that occasionally people label the foods they are avoiding (for whatever reason) as ‘allergies’, which is not only misleading for chalet staff but can mean legitimate allergies are not taken as seriously as they should be. I think people should be more honest about why they are not eating certain foods. If I’m told that a guest doesn’t eat a certain food because they are following a particular diet, I will always respect that, whereas (as has happened several times) guests who declare themselves as vegetarian then ask for a steak, tends to generate a certain amount of cynicism in the industry. Regardless of the reason for the dietary requirement it does provide a great opportunity for us chefs to learn about different allergies and diets, and how to cater for them in new and exciting ways. Satisfying and exceeding our guests expectations is what creates an enormous amount of job satisfaction and is why we return season after season.”
IT’S A CAREER CHOICE
Morgan Jupe – Josh Morgan, Managing Director
“The shift in the role of the chalet chef to that of constant creator has definitely affected how chefs are recruited. Our chefs come to resort to work, not ski, and indeed most of our chefs last year were not even skiers. They were here for the work and for the level of creativity and challenge it can offer. It’s changed the face of the industry, for the better.”
With more than 150 million Europeans now suffering from chronic allergic diseases, and a prediction that by 2025 half of the entire EU population will be affected, this isn’t a passing fad. The British market for gluten-free products alone is expected to grow to £561m in 2017. For chefs not up to the challenge, the future is bleak. For those at the top of their game, such as Nick Lyon Dean and Alex Blagdon, the future just keeps getting brighter.
If you’d like to find out more about Morgan Jupe and the Boutique Chalet Company, head over to morganjupe.co.uk and theboutiquechalet.com for some serious holiday inspiration.
