Tartiflette
Tartiflette is the best-known mountain dish in Savoie: potatoes, onions, bacon and half a reblochon melted on top, the whole thing browned in the oven. It is served in every high-altitude restaurant after a day’s skiing. Its history is more interesting than it looks, because it mixes a real peasant tradition with a clever piece of marketing.
From péla to tartiflette
The original dish is called the péla, after the long-handled pan it was cooked in, once placed straight in the hearth. It was a peasant meal from the Aravis: potatoes fried in cubes with their skin, onions, reblochon, nothing more. The word tartiflette comes from “tartifla,” the potato in Savoyard dialect.
The modern version, the one we know, was popularised in the 1980s. For a long time people said the reblochon trade body had invented it from scratch to shift surplus stock. The body’s director has nuanced that legend: the industry did not create the recipe, but it clearly benefited from its success. What mainly happened then was that the recipe was standardised and spread: peeled potatoes, bacon, onions deglazed with white wine, and baked in a gratin dish rather than fried in a pan. That form went round the resorts.
The recipe, classic version
For four people you need a whole reblochon (about 450 to 500 g), a kilo of firm-fleshed potatoes, two onions, 200 g of bacon lardons and a glass of dry Savoie white wine.
Cook the potatoes in water or by steaming, then slice them into rounds. Fry the sliced onions and the lardons in a pan, deglaze with the white wine and let it reduce. Mix the potatoes, onions and lardons, salt lightly (the bacon and cheese already salt), pepper, and tip into a gratin dish. Cut the reblochon in half through its thickness and lay the two halves rind up on top. Bake at 200 °C for about twenty minutes, until the cheese is melted and golden.
The mistakes to avoid
The choice of cheese makes everything. A real reblochon melts without turning rubbery; any industrial cheese will never give the same result. Lay it rind up so the rind browns and protects the paste. Do not drown the dish in cream: the classic tartiflette has none, the reblochon binds it on its own. Finally, pick firm-fleshed potatoes that hold up to cooking rather than falling apart.
Which wine with a tartiflette
The dish is rich, so it needs a wine that cuts through. A dry, lively Savoie white is the most logical pairing, for example a Chablais cru or a roussette. Some prefer a light Savoie red such as mondeuse, which has more structure. Avoid wines that are too oaky or too powerful, which crush the cheese.
Where to eat it in Haute-Savoie
You can find a good tartiflette in every resort, but it makes more sense where reblochon is born, in the Aravis. The high-altitude restaurants and farm inns around La Clusaz, Le Grand-Bornand and Manigod serve it with cheese made a few kilometres away. For the full context of the region’s dishes, see the Savoyard specialities page.