On a blustery, chilly evening — when the wind is blowing off the East River and your teeth are chattering uncontrollably — you should take a lesson from the Swiss mountaineers: Dip your spear in a bubbling pot of molten cheese and warm up.
Yes, it’s officially fondue season.
And in the last few months, New York has undergone a small revitalization in fondue dining. For starters, the downtown Swiss restaurant Café Select quartered off its own “Fondue Room” this fall.
“We want to keep it exclusive,” says Tizia Sertimer, the restaurant’s manager.
But why keep this cozy little back room — designed to remind one of a Alpine chalet — so far apart? “Because [fondue] stinks — it’s cheese!” she exclaims.
But one man’s smelly cheese is another man’s lactose heaven. East Village bar and restaurant the Bourgeois Pig, which specializes in fondue (including lobster bisque and French onion versions), has done so well that it expanded into Carroll Gardens, in Brooklyn, just before the start of the new year.
And if that’s not enough to convince you that the city is fond of its fondue, stop by Terrance Brennan’s cheese-centric restaurant Artisanal next month.
“Every February we do Fondue Month, where we do a different fondue every day,” says Brennan, who uses unique cheeses for his fondue such as blue cheese. “We sell a ton. Sixty to 75 tables [per night] have fondue as a starter.”
New York has gone through fondue crazes in the past.
“In the 1950s fondue was very, very popular,” says Arthur Schwartz, author of “New York City Food.” “I got married in 1969, and they were still giving fondue sets as wedding presents. Everyone had a Dansk fondue pot. It then became popular again in the mid- to late-’80s.”
Fondue restaurants have a tendency to flame out, however. Even among food experts who profess to love fondue, the dish has a reputation for being something a little too simple to take seriously.
“It’s not a thing I would go out for,” says Schwartz. “It’s one of the laziest, easiest things to make.”
In fact, ask “Bake!” author Nick Malgieri where his favorite spot for fondue in New York is, and he will answer: “My house.”
“Most [Swiss] people still eat it at home,” says Anne McBride, author of “Les Petits Macarons,” who spoke to The Post from her native Switzerland. “Everyone has an earthenware dish that they got as a wedding gift or a housewarming gift, and they make it [at home].”
A classic fondue is hard to make badly. It consists merely of cheese (traditionally gruyère), some white wine (preferably an “acidic wine,” says Schwartz, because you “need an acid to get the cheese to be smooth”), a touch of cornstarch (“It helps emulsify,” says Brennan), a little garlic and a splash of kirschwasser (cherry water).
“Like barbecue in the US, it’s a men’s dish [in Switzerland],” says McBride. “It’s widely popularized by the military, which is mandatory [for men] in Switzerland, and that’s where they learn it.”
The origins of the dish go back several hundred years. “It evolved out of necessity,” says Brennan, who went to Switzerland to learn about it before he opened Artisanal. “Sheepherders moving from village to village in the winters had only stale bread and cheese as a staple to survive the harsh winters.”
The staleness of the bread used for sopping up the cheese proved to be a plus. “It doesn’t have to be stale,” says Malgieri, but “spongy bread will compress. It needs to hold its shape to absorb a good coating of cheese around it.”
The various regions around the Alps also developed their own cousins of fondue, such as the dish’s Italian iteration, fonduta, which has its origins in Piedmont. Fonduta is “created with white truffle,” says Laura Maioglio, owner of Barbetta, one of the only places in the city where it’s served.
Fondues in which the cheese was replaced with hot oil and the bread was replaced with meat — known as fondue bourguignonne — became popular in the 1950s and ’60s. As did chocolate fondue (a fully American invention).
But the dish perseveres perhaps because it’s just fun to eat.
“It’s a great date dish,” says Michael Dulle, general manager of the JakeWalk in Brooklyn, which serves a $16 fondue for two with apples, salumi and bread. “Just the other night, someone said, ‘I came for fondue with my boyfriend [the night we met].’ ”
Hot cheese on a cold winter’s date? Sounds hot!