Savoyard fondue

Savoyard fondue is cheese melted in white wine, eaten by dipping pieces of bread on a long fork. The convivial dish par excellence, born from the need to use up hardening cheese and stale bread, it rests on a simple but precise balance: the right cheese blend, the right wine, the right temperature.

The cheese blend

There is no single official recipe, but one constant logic: combine several cheeses to get character, length on the palate and creaminess all at once. The traditional Savoyard version uses about 40% Beaufort, 40% Abondance and 20% Emmental de Savoie or Gruyère de Savoie.

Another blend took hold from the 1960s, in equal parts Beaufort, Emmental and Comté. It is the most common one at home today. Each cheese plays a role: Beaufort brings richness and fat, Comté length and fruit, Emmental creaminess and melt.

The good reflex: take at least two cheeses, one with character (Beaufort or Abondance) and one that melts well. Count on about 200 to 250 g of cheese per person, as it is a one-dish meal.

The recipe

For four people, plan on 800 g to 1 kg of grated or thinly sliced cheese, 30 cl of dry Savoie white wine, a clove of garlic, a little pepper and some nutmeg. Some add a spoon of kirsch and a touch of starch to stabilise it.

Rub the pot with the cut garlic clove, then discard it. Pour in the white wine and heat it gently until it simmers, without boiling. Add the cheese little by little, a handful at a time, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula in figure-eights. Wait until each addition has melted before adding more. When the mix is smooth and even, pepper, add nutmeg, and sit down to eat. Keep the pot over a very low burner during the meal.

The bread should be a little stale and cut into cubes with crust on each piece, so it holds on the fork. If the fondue splits (the fat separates), a dash of wine or lemon juice whisked hard often saves it.

Which wine to cook with and to drink

Use a dry, lively Savoie white for cooking, the same one you will serve at the table. The Savoie wines made from apremont, jacquère or roussette work well: their acidity helps the cheese melt and lightens the dish. Avoid whites that are too sweet or too oaky. An old local rule says you do not drink cold water with a fondue, so as not to set the cheese in your stomach: a glass of white or a herbal tea rather than a big glass of iced water.

Fondue, raclette, tartiflette: don’t mix them up

These three dishes use Savoie cheese but have nothing else in common. Fondue melts a blend of cheeses in wine. Raclette melts a single wheel that you scrape onto potatoes. Tartiflette is a potato gratin with reblochon. The Savoyard specialities page places them within the whole repertoire.

Where to eat it

Fondue is served in every mountain restaurant in Haute-Savoie, from the Aravis resorts to the Mont-Blanc area. For a version closest to the cheeses, look for farm inns and tables that work with local producers, for example around Annecy, Megève or Chamonix.