Matterhorn calling: A "catered" vacation?? "With board"??

So many of the lodging options we considered in Switzerland were quoted "with board," or with "half-board," it threw us for a bit of a loop. Part of our travel enjoyment is usually sampling different restaurants and food, and there appeared to be many good options here in Zermatt. Chalet Ulysse, which is where we landed (and from where I am sitting right now in the kitchen typing this blog), even came with a dedicated Chef (who, as I type, is working hard 8 feet from me preparing our last dinner of the trip.... but I'll get to that).

We didn't know what to think, and considered whether we should only look at places that allowed "a la carte" or (no catering). What kind of food would the catering provide? Plates of lasagna? Sandwiches? "Bulk food"? Who knows? We still don't really know - because we lucked out.

Our hosts - Erica and Romain - have catered our vacation with a level of quality we could not have found with restaurant or a la carte dining. And we haven't had to grocery shop, cook, or do dishes! The benefit of this freedom surprised us. And the quality has been superb - with no offense towards the restaurant, our weakest meal of the week was the one we had last night at one of the finest restaurants in town - on Erica and Romain's night off! Here they are with most of our crew before dinner a few nights ago:

What an unexpected treat this has been. I wrote about one of Romain's apres ski cakes the other day, here are a few pictures of other things he and Erica have prepared throughout the week. Fine dining for certain.