Switzerland · Chalet weeks
St. Moritz
Full board for fourteen, at altitude, for seven days
Season
When to host in St. Moritz
Peak: Christmas to New Year, February. Quiet: May to June, October to November.
- DecemberThe Christmas and New Year fortnight is the most expensive catering week in Europe. Chalet chefs are contracted in May, and a New Year’s Eve dinner for sixteen is quoted like a wedding.
- January to MarchThe real season. January is quieter and cheaper, February is full, March has the best light and a softening price. Snow polo and the racing calendar fill specific weekends.
- July to SeptemberThe Alpine summer, underrated and good value. Long tables outside, hiking lunches and a chef who is delighted to see you.
- May to June, October to NovemberBetween seasons most of the village closes, including the suppliers.
Venues
Where dinner happens
- Chalets
- The classic: a proper kitchen, a dining room for twelve to twenty and a full week of service. The job is a hotel, not a dinner.
- Mountain huts for private hire
- Lunch at altitude, arriving by snowcat or lift, with a kitchen that can roast but not plate.
- Hotel private rooms
- For larger parties, with the house brigade. Expensive and entirely reliable.
- Ice and terrace settings
- Spectacular, brief and cold. Canapés and a hot punch, then go inside.
Produce
What to build a menu on
- Engadine specialities: bündnerfleisch, alpine cheese, rye bread, high mountain butter
- Italy is two hours over the pass and supplies most vegetables and fish
- Game in autumn, lake fish from the Engadine lakes, mountain herbs in summer
- Swiss prices on everything, which is the single largest line in any Alpine food budget
Staff
Hiring here
Chalet crews are a team, not individual hires: chef, host or butler, housekeeper and driver, living in, working split shifts for the season. Hire the team that has worked together rather than four strangers.
Rules
The paperwork nobody mentions
- Work permits
- Switzerland is strict. A chef or waiter who is not Swiss or EU resident needs paperwork for a chalet week, and the chalet owner carries the risk of getting it wrong.
- Food cost and import
- Bringing food across the border in quantity is a customs matter. Chefs who do Alpine seasons buy in Switzerland and absorb the price, or buy in Italy legally and declare it.
- Altitude
- Water boils near 93 degrees at 1,800 metres. Baking, pressure cooking and anything egg based behave differently, and an unprepared chef loses a course on day one.
Plan it
A dinner in St. Moritz
The planners use this market’s price level, staff rates and rentals.
What it should cost
Cost Planner
A full cost model for a private dinner: food, kitchen labour, service, rentals and logistics, by market and service style.
OpenHow many hands
Staff Planner
The brigade for your dinner: cooks, servers, bartenders and the captain.
OpenWhat is good this month
Produce Season Finder
Pick a month and a region and see what is genuinely in season: vegetables, fruit, fish, meat and the menus on this site that are built around them..
OpenFormats
What works in St. Moritz
Format
Four services a day, at altitudeChalet Season
The Alpine week: breakfast, packed lunch, afternoon tea and dinner for up to sixteen, in a house where the supermarket shuts at seven and water boils at ninety three degrees..
Read on
Format
Restaurant precision, private roomTasting Menu for Eight
Eight to nine courses, a brigade of three, wine paired by the glass.
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Format
Boat, vineyard, mountain, bonnet of a carThe Travelling Lunch
Lunch where there is no kitchen at all: a boat, a vineyard row, a mountain hut, a beach at the end of a track.
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Format
Formal service, domestic buildingTownhouse Banquet
Twenty to forty guests, silver service or plated, in a building never designed for it.
Read onMenus
Built for this market
Menu
Seven days that buildThe Alpine Week
Not one dinner but seven, arranged as a rhythm: two simple nights, one showpiece, one fondue, a raclette, a soup supper and the night everyone goes out..
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Menu
Autumn, iron, sweetnessThe Game Season Dinner
From October to January: grouse, partridge, venison, hare.
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Menu
The easy night, done wellFondue and Raclette, Properly
The night the kitchen rests and the table works.
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Menu
The full eveningThe Eight Course Tasting Dinner
The classical arc: three small bites, a raw course, a soup, a fish, a meat, a cheese moment, a pre dessert and a dessert.
Read onChefs
The profiles you will find here
Chef profile
Four services a day for seven daysThe Chalet Chef
Breakfast, packed lunch, afternoon tea and dinner, at altitude, for a fortnight.
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Chef profile
Children at six, adults at nineThe Family Season Chef
Two menus a night without cooking twice, allergies remembered, and a lunch that feeds eight adults and five children who will not sit down..
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Chef profile
Stock, reduction, a spoon that coatsThe Classical Chef
French technique in a private house: a proper stock made that morning, a sauce that coats the spoon, a soufflé that rises on time..
Read onQuestions hosts ask
What does a chalet chef cost for a week?
5,000 to 8,000 euros for a normal February week for up to twelve guests, 10,000 to 16,000 over Christmas and New Year, plus food at 120 to 180 euros per person per day and accommodation for the crew.
Do I need a butler as well?
Above ten guests with full board, yes. One pair of hands cannot cook four services and also serve them, and the chalet host is usually the person who saves the week.
Does altitude really change the cooking?
Yes. Water boils at about 93 degrees, pastry and eggs behave differently, braises take longer and anything pressure cooked needs recalculating. Experienced Alpine chefs plan menus around it.