Every ski week hides a different holiday inside it. The ones who want first tracks before the lifts open. The ones who'd rather never see a piste at all. The couple who came for nothing but a fire, a good bottle, and each other. The six-year-old negotiating with Father Christmas over exactly how many presents constitute enough.
Most chalets ask everyone to want the same thing. This one doesn't.
Same four walls. Same fire, same view. What's different is who's arrived, and what they came here to feel by the end of it. That's what shapes the menu, chosen weeks in advance with our concierge team, so the week that unfolds is the one you actually pictured.
Not every dream includes a chef. For some guests, the whole point of the week is getting out: booking a different table in Verbier or Méribel each night, working through the local restaurants one by one, the chalet simply the place they come back to. For others, dinner at home most nights, cooked by someone who trained on a superyacht, is the entire holiday.
Both are the right answer. À La Carte doesn't assume which one you want. It asks.
There's one thing almost nobody skips, whichever way a group leans on catering: a private guide or instructor. Everything else on the menu shapes the hours around the skiing. This shapes the skiing itself: where you go, how fast you improve, whether you ski terrain the lift map won't show you. Guests who'd never consider a private chef will still, almost without exception, want someone alongside them on the snow.
Nobody says it out loud, but everyone's picturing the same thing: three generations under one roof, and somehow nobody stuck running it.
The nanny has the toddler fed and dressed, freeing the parents for a full day on the mountain. Downstairs, a six-year-old is deep in negotiation with Father Christmas over exactly how many presents constitute enough, timed quietly for precisely when a six-year-old's patience runs out and not a minute later. The mother comes back from a morning on the blues to a massage already booked and waiting. By evening, the adults are by the fire with a wine list built around what they actually like, a game of Yahtzee going.
A nervous intermediate arrives dreaming of a first black run, and gets a guide who won't rush them into it. Somewhere else on the mountain, a guest chasing improvement builds small technical corrections into every day, so Thursday looks nothing like Monday. Elsewhere again, someone wants a local guide who knows the mountain like his own backyard: the couloir off the back of Mont Gelé that only holds its snow until midday, every lift queue worth avoiding.
À La Carte matches the guide to whoever's booked the week, not the other way round.
Not every booking revolves around the mountain. For some, it's a dog sledding run through the trees, guests who came for the Alps rather than the skiing. For others, a snowshoe guide picks a route built to leave a non-skier feeling just as adventurous as anyone who spent the day on the slopes. For others still, it's a head torch lit toboggan run, or an afternoon that starts and ends at the spa.
Same chalet. Same concierge team on hand. A completely different week each time, built entirely around whoever's asked for it.
For some, the dream isn't the mountain everyone else sees. It's the one before anyone else is awake. Powder hunters who'd rank an alarm at first light over a lie-in and a slow coffee.
A helicopter booked for sunrise. Snow nobody's touched yet, while the rest of the resort is still asleep. Lunch already sorted: a table held at an alpine refuge serving what might be the best fondue at altitude, reached only by those who know to look for it. By afternoon, legs finally feeling the morning's effort, a massage waits back at the chalet, booked days ago by a concierge who knew exactly when it would be needed most.
Nobody dreams of the walk back from the piste in ski boots, skis over one shoulder, a tired child over the other.
À La Carte removes it. A private driver waits at the bottom of the piste, ready to load skis and children before that walk ever has to happen. Airport transfers arranged the same way: the holiday starts on landing, not on arrival at the chalet door.
Not every dream is elaborate. Some guests want a sommelier for one evening, wines matched to a menu nobody had to request twice. Others want the absence of decisions entirely: fresh linen changed without anyone noticing, the quietest week the chalet has seen all season.
That absence is, in its own way, the hardest thing to arrange well.
The dream here isn't about the skiing at all. Legs that ache in the right way. A massage booked for exactly that day. A yoga session before the mountain, not after it.
The best weeks are the ones planned in advance. Every À La Carte request goes through our concierge team at least four weeks before you land, giving them time to line up the right chef, the right guide, the right table at altitude. It's this early planning that lets a week arrive already shaped, so once you're here, there's nothing left to do but live it.
Same four walls. Same fire, same view. Alarms one week, a Santa visit the next, and the chalet, every time, simply waiting to find out which dream it gets to hold.
If a week built entirely around your own picture of it sounds like the one you're after, our concierge team is ready to start planning it with you.
Many luxury ski chalets offer a private chef as part of the stay, though the arrangement varies by property. Some include catering as standard, while others let guests choose it for part of the week. Armadillo Chalets offers a private chef on a three night minimum, arranged around however the group wants to eat.
Yes, most high end chalet operators allow guests to build extras into a ski holiday, from private guides and drivers to wellness treatments and family childcare. This is usually arranged with a concierge team ahead of the trip rather than decided on arrival. Armadillo Chalets coordinates this through its À La Carte service.
Common add ons for a ski chalet stay include private chefs, mountain guides, airport and piste transfers, in chalet massage or yoga, childcare, and sommelier evenings. These are typically requested in advance so they can be properly arranged around the group's plans. Armadillo Chalets groups all of these under its À La Carte menu.
Non skiers have plenty to fill a week in the Alps, from dog sledding and snowshoeing to tobogganing and spa treatments. Many of these can be arranged privately rather than in a group setting, and scheduled around when skiing guests are out on the mountain. Armadillo Chalets arranges all of this through its À La Carte concierge service.
