Cuisine
With a skiers’ buffet breakfast to start your day, afternoon tea to welcome you ‘home’, and 4- or 5-course evening meals with wine and coffee included to complete the evening, our chalets and Chalet Hotels provide by far the best value accommodation in the Alps!
We set high standards for our cuisine, and train our staff extensively before the season starts, to ensure that Esprit guests will enjoy every meal with us.
For six days of the week in both chalets and Chalet Hotels, our staff prepare all your meals for you as described on these pages. The majority of Esprit parents feel that young children can inhibit the dinner-party atmosphere at evening meals, especially if they are over-tired, so children under 13 years are served High Tea at around 5.30pm in our chalets and Chalet Hotels alike. They are not then permitted to join adult dinner, as they are generally happier either getting some rest ready for tomorrow’s adventures, or if 6 years old or more, joining our child care staff in Cocoa Club.
On their one day off per week, your host in chalets will prepare a Continental-style breakfast which will be left for you to help yourselves, whilst in Chalet Hotels, a full buffet breakfast will still be served to you as normal. That evening, you and your family then have the chance to eat out in one of the local cafés or restaurants, which your Esprit Representative will be happy to help you arrange.
Breakfast
A good breakfast is essential on a ski holiday, so we provide our chalet guests a choice of cereals or porridge, fruit juices, plentiful tea, coffee and bread (and croissants or ‘pains au chocolat’ in France), cold meats, cheeses and preserves, and boiled eggs. This is normally presented buffetstyle for you to help yourself.
In addition to all the above, our Chalet Hotels also include a daily hot dish, such as scrambled eggs on toast, or home-made pancakes with maple syrup.
Piste Picnics
Our Chalet Hotel teams can also prepare a packed lunch for you on request, at a small local charge. For those keen to keep their Eurospending to an absolute minimum, this is the ideal way to keep your costs down!
Afternoon Tea
The traditional ‘welcome home’ after a day on the slopes will be laid out for you in your chalet or Chalet Hotel, ready for your return, every day except the team’s one day off each week. A good cup of tea or coffee is the perfect accompaniment to a delicious slice of freshly home-baked cake – different every day and our Chalet Hotels also feature a selection of goodies for you to choose from.
Children’s High Tea
High Tea provides children under 13 with a healthy menu, but tailored more towards children’s tastes than our main adult dinner, and puréed food is also always available for infants on request. Parents are asked to accompany their children under 36 months at High Tea please, whilst children from 3-12 years will be supervised by Esprit staff.
Adult Dinner in Chalets
In all our chalets, our four-course dinners for adults (and children 13 and over only) start with canapés and an apéritif, followed by an appetiser, main course and dessert. The meal is accompanied by a choice of wines, unlimited during the meal service, with freshly chilled water also always available, and followed by complimentary coffee or tea with chocolates to round off your evening.
‘Culinary Choice’ Adult Dinner in Chalet Hotels
Meanwhile in Chalet Hotels, we offer our ‘Culinary Choice’ adult dinners six nights per week, comprising five courses, with a choice of menu for your enjoyment. Adults (and children 13 and over only) will be asked to choose their evening meals at breakfast for that evening, from a choice of two or three varied dishes, changing each day, always including a vegetarian option for each course, and accompanied by our complimentary wines. Courses are as described above for chalets, plus a local cheeseboard will also be available each day as the fifth course to complete your evening’s dining.
Special Diets
Vegetarian options are always on our ‘Culinary Choice’ menu in our Chalet Hotels, and are available in our chalets if you advise us in advance. Other special diets can generally be catered for at a cost of £35 per person per week. Any dietary requirements must be advised to us at the time of booking in order for us to be fully prepared.
Family Dining Chalets
For those families who prefer to eat together with their younger children, we offer our Family Dining option in any chalet of up to 12 beds, if you book the whole chalet for your own party, subject to chalet suitability. Everyone then eats together in the evening, starting at 6.30-7.00pm. The meals are based on our adult menus, with some flexibility for younger taste buds, although not a complete ‘à la carte’ choice!
The additional charge for changing meals to Family Dining is £39 per child. (Chalet Valentine in La Rosière and Chalet Oskar in Selva are always Family Dining chalets and no supplement applies).
Esprit Wine Selection
Dear Guest
“We are very proud of our wine selection for Esprit chalets and Chalet Hotels, which combines crisp and fruity whites with medium to full bodied reds, for a variety of palates. We select our wines in conjunction with our good friends Nicolas and Véronique – the third generation in the Perret family’s fine wine business based in the Savoie.
Nicolas is a Master of Wine, having trained at the prestigious Burgundy Wine University in Beaune. Each season in October, Nicolas & Véronique bring over a new selection for us to sample (someone has to do it!) and together we choose our wines for the coming season, based on our menus and their pure enjoyment factor.
Wine is an incredibly subjective and emotive subject, however the feedback we have received from our guests over recent seasons endorses our aims of providing wines to enhance your meal and to suit most tastes.
We hope you will enjoy them as much as we do!”
Ian Hope
Programme Director
Simmonds Family
“Delicious food, way above my expectations! We are so impressed with Esprit!”
Saas Fee, February 2010
Patel Family
“Our chalet hosts were by far the best we have experienced. They immediately made us feel welcome and were fantastic with our lively three year old. The meals were delicious and well presented.”
La Rosière, February 2010
