Hotel Albris stories

From Portugal to the Hotel Albris

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He shapes good bread, she packages fine Engadine cakes. Paulo and Sandra Carvalho-Silva have been working at the Hotel Albris for 15 years. The financial crisis forced them to leave Portugal as a young family.

6.30 o'clock. Paulo and Sandra are sitting in the staff room and having breakfast. They treat themselves to a freshly baked roll and talk about private everyday things: the shopping that needs to be done or the dog that needs to be walked.

The two have been married for 26 years and have worked at the Hotel Albris for 15 years. Paulo is the head baker and has just finished his shift. Sandra's working day, on the other hand, is about to start; she works in the bakery shop team. She mostly works in the background and is particularly responsible for packing the various cakes and pastries. She is rarely at the front of the sales counter.

Sandra often comes to the Hotel Albris a little earlier so that she can have breakfast with her husband. The couple attaches great importance to eating together: «Spending time as a family is the most important thing for us. That's why we eat dinner together with our adult son every day.»

The strong sense of family also has to do with their origins. Both grew up in large families in Paços de Ferreira, a small industrial town north of Porto. Sandra Marisa Torres Silva has six siblings, Raul Paulo Goncalves Carvalho has four.

Fell in love as teenagers

As beautiful as the Portuguese names sound, the family circumstances are modest. There is no money to enable the children to receive an education. Paulo is already working in a furniture factory at the age of thirteen, painting chairs and tables. Sandra starts working as a seamstress in a clothing factory at the age of fifteen. At this time they fall in love. Barely grown up, they get married and soon have a son. Later they buy an apartment where they live happily and contentedly as a young family. But then comes 2008 and the global financial crisis. The mortgage interest rate suddenly doubles, Paulo and Sandra urgently need a higher income to be able to pay off the apartment.

They come to Pontresina thanks to one of Sandra's sisters-in-law. She works in a kiosk with a view of the Hotel Albris. So she runs over and asks Claudio Kochendörfer if he has a job for Sandra and Paulo. At first, he only wants to hire Paulo, but finally he is persuaded to employ Sandra too. And he would not regret it: "We are very happy to have Sandra and Paulo. They are reliable, work precisely and independently. Even as a married couple, they are an important pillar of the team." Paulo starts as an assistant in the kitchen, washing dishes and pans. After one season, he moves to the bakery, first as a bread delivery person, then as an assistant baker. He proves to be very skilled and dutiful, so that Claudio Kochendörfer promotes him to the new head baker when the old one retires geht.

From Assistant to Boss

Paulo says: «I like working as a baker. I like working the dough with my hands and shaping loaves of bread. As the Kochendörfer family places great value on quality, we prepare every croissant and every roll fresh and by hand.» He doesn't mind working at night, as he can easily change his sleeping habits on his days off. It is important to him that the 40 or so types of bread baked every day always taste the same. «It is crucial to put the loaves of dough in the oven at the right moment– as soon as they have risen optimally. If they go in the oven too early, the bread will not be airy enough; if the dough ferments for too long, too many acidic aromas develop.»

Paulo can regulate the rising process with the temperature of the water added. If it is cold, the dough will rise more slowly; if it is warm, it will rise more quickly. Humidity also plays a role. Whether the sun is shining or raining outside is something Paulo also has to take into account.

If a loaf of bread is not well-shaped or the croissants are baked too lightly, Sandra is the first critic who is not afraid to complain to her husband. Her job in the early morning is to put the fresh bread on the shelves and check for defects. She then goes to the packing room in the basement. This is her "kingdom". Sandra is responsible for packing the fine delicacies from the pastry shop. In the high season she packs up to 200 Engadine cakes in one day, as well as nut cakes, ibex cakes and boxes of confectionery. She says: "I like doing fine work with my hands. The art is to be quick and precise at the same time. My previous job as a seamstress definitely comes in handy here."

"We'll stay until retirement"

Sandra and Paulo value their work and the family atmosphere at the Hotel Albris: "After all these years, it feels like it's our house too." Their son Bruno grew up in Pontresina and speaks Portuguese, fluent German, Romansh and Italian. They live as a family of three in a rented apartment. When they recently had to move out of their old apartment, the Hotel Albris was able to provide them with a new one. Sandra and Paulo are very grateful for this, because it has become extremely difficult to find affordable accommodation in the Engadine.

As a married couple, they usually have time off together, at least one day a week, often two. Then they like to go on trips into nature. They like the peace and quiet of the mountains and now feel really at home in Pontresina. "If it were up to us, we would stay at the Hotel Albris. until we retire." And then? "Then we'll probably go back to Portugal to our paid-off apartment."

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