Chalet holiday specialists Ski Beat have been trailblazers in catering for skiers and boarders who enjoy vegan or vegetarian meals or have gluten or nut free dietary needs. They’ve both organised special vegan weeks in some chalets in previous seasons whilst also seeking to cater for all needs and requests in all chalets all season.
This winter the company expects to prepare 6,000 vegan-suitable meals, and serve up nearly 4,000 rashers of plant based bacon, and 4,000 meat free sausages. Ski Beat says that around 11% of guests are requesting alternative diets this season, an all-time high since the company started nearly forty years ago.
This winter though the company has decided to do things differently and rather than having separate menus for guests with dietary preferences or intolerances, Ski Beat’s chalet hosts will be producing meals to an identical menu and substituting plant based alternatives or switching in nut and gluten free ingredients. That will be in all of its thirty one ski chalets, located in seven leading French resorts, all season.
Ski Beat’s Operations Director, Emma Greffett says “One of the great joys of staying in a shared ski chalet is enjoying sociable mealtimes around large tables, meeting as strangers and leaving as friends. Our aim is to be more inclusive, not to prepare completely different dishes for guests following alternative diets. The onus is on us, to make our meal plan work for all, not for guests to be excluded from the standard daily menus. After a lot of work and creative thinking, the menu is adapting to them, not the other way around.”
For the first time this season, the company is adding vegan bacon options to its `full English cooked breakfast’, having already sourced vegan sausages last season. The plant-based breakfasts will be identical in appearance and quality to the meat-based alternatives. This is the vegan tartiflette.
Keeping with the theme of inclusivity, most of the desserts have been created to be suitable for all guests, such as Tuesday evening’s dessert of Chocolate Brownies, Monday’s Pear and Ginger Crumble, and new for 2024-25, handmade chocolate truffles each Thursday, after a cheese board with dairy free alternatives.
Emma Greffett adds, “The recipe for the brownies and the truffles IS dairy free, but we don’t make a statement about it, and that way, everyone enjoys the same dessert without fuss. The crumble can be tweaked, by using dairy free spread within the topping, without it appearing to be a different dish. And our fabulous new, handmade truffles are suitable for most dietary tastes and preferences – and are delicious! Likewise, the main courses and starters, thanks to some creative cooking on the part of the chalet hosts. For example, when they prepare our Chicken Provencal, they will serve a virtually identical Soy Chicken Fillet Provencal. Likewise, the Roast Pork alternative is soy slices, which in both texture, taste and appearance are almost identical. And the much loved tartiflette will appear to be the same, whether it contains dairy or not.”
