Winter has arrived in the Alps and there is good snow in all the resorts, lifts are open and people are out skiing and having fun. Most people starting their seasons will be arriving in their resort or on their training week, eagerly learning their way around the resort and their chalet, meeting their colleagues, going shopping, cooking and finding out the best bars in town.
So what does training week really involve? Well you usually begin your training with all your fellow staff who will be working in the same resort, you might do this in a different resort to the one you are actually working in. For example a big company like Crystal may take all its staff to Val d’Isere for training week, if you are working for a smaller company then your training will be done in the resort and chalet you are working in. You will be split into groups and under your chalet or resort manger, along with the area manager you will do resort orientation – finding the tourist office, ski hire shops, where to buy lift passes, the medical centre/doctor, the ski lifts, other chalets and much much more.
As chalet hosts if you have set menus from the company you will spend 3 – 4 days cooking meals from these menus so you know what they look like, how they taste, how to present them and getting used to using different ingredients and finding your way around the kitchen. You may do a big shopping trip to the supermarket down the valley to stock up your chalet for the coming winter too. You will have sessions on cleaning and making up your chalet ready for each week of guests, you manager will take you through how you receive information on your guests your welcome speech on their arrival, how to deal with any problems and complaints; you are likely to receive a manual from your company that you keep for reference throughout the season.
Once all this has been done you will be moved to your resort and settle into your chalet and begin to get it set up for the arrival of your first guests. You maybe lucky to have a week or two of guests before Christmas, which will get you into the swing of things before the busiest and most tiring week of the season!
Hopefully in amongst all of this you will get to go skiing a little bit, don’t be surprised or upset if you are not given your lift pass until training is over. This is often the case as you have so much to focus on first that they don’t let you out onto the mountain until your chalet is clean, stocked and ready to rock.
Once you do get out skiing, take care you don’t want to hurt yourself and end your season straight away. You have 5 months of skiing ahead of you and plenty of time to have fun, improve, explore the area and learn how to do a 720!
We hope to have some updates on our students from this year’s cookery courses who will be letting us know how their season is going, no doubt with some great times and some bad times too. So check back to our blog regularly for updates from resorts.
The Alpine Cookery Course is the leading chalet host training course for ski season workers. We teach you everything you need to know to successfully run a ski chalet, cook delicious, nutritious meals with minimum hassle & maximise your time on the slopes.
www.thealpinecookerycourse.com ‖ info@thealpinecookerycourse.com
