Zurich, Switzerland (The Joy of Food) — I can’t think of a better place to venture into a pot of boiling cheese for dinner than at Le Dézaley, Zurich’s fondue mecca right in the heart of the city. If you have ever spent time around a fondue pot, this will feel like home.
It is a huge place nestled in a quiet alley at the foot of the Grossmünster’s north tower. Like the city, there are two parts to the restaurant — a new one and an old one. The old one is more rustic and charming, so try to get a seat there.
If you have ever eaten fondue, you probably know the drill. Basically, you swish a cubed little piece of bread through the bubbling mixture for a second or two, twirling just long enough to soak the edges so that there’s hot, thick, melted cheese oozing into the crevices. Then, you feast.
What you’ll be tasting is loads of cheese, mainly Gruyere, with a boozy aftertaste. That’s because Swiss fondue gets a glass of white wine tossed in for good measure, a little trick that gloriously amplifies the flavor of the cheese. If you’ve done it right, the composite texture is also extraordinary on the tongue, almost liquid, with a burst of strong alcohol to finish things off.
The best part is probably what comes at the end, after about an hour or two of slowly dwindling down your pot of fondue until it’s all gone. Like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, here you will find chunks of melted cheese to scrape from the very bottom of the dish. For me, this is more like a poem about cheese than like cheese itself.
But at Le Dézaley, cheese fondue is only the beginning, at least when you order the family-recipe classic fondue. Also available are fondues with morels or black truffle. And instead of bread and cheese, there are fondues where Swiss cooking meets Japanese shabu-shabu and you can dunk little chunks of beef, chicken, or veal into a pot of hot oil and then finish with an array of sauces.
You will need something else every few bites, and that’s where an entire plate of charcuterie comes into play. There are few meals where fatty cuts of salami and prosciutto will cut through the richness of the other thing you’re eating.
If there’s any place to enjoy some Swiss wine it would be here, in a place named after Dézaley in the heart of the famous Lavaux wine-growing region. They barely make enough of the stuff for themselves and don’t export any beyond their own borders.
As expected, this place is popular and not exactly cheap. Be aware that listed prices are per person, since they adjust cheese and protein quantity depending on the number of diners.
Written by Joy
Thanks for reading. The Joy of Food blog celebrates eating well, traveling often, and living la dolce vita. San Diego, California is home base, but thoughts are from all over. Reviews and photos help to highlight wonderful (or not) food experiences from around the world.
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I miss the old days when I could spend an hour or two at a buffet feeding a food coma.
This will sound like heresy but I rarely went to buffets since I could never eat enough where it was worth the money. I remember the glory days of Vegas buffets, for example, and I’d sit there for four hours and barely cover a few rounds!
I always skipped eating before hitting the buffet so I would be starving. 🙂
I missed out on the great fondue craze of the seventies. I was more disappointed that I missed the restaurant whose name I can’t remember, on El Cajon Blvd. Also Swiss, I think; the building was still there when I moved to North Park in the nineties but it had closed down. Le Dézaley sounds and looks a lot better than that likely ever was.
The El Cajon Blvd restaurant was before my time in San Diego, but I do remember that one place at the bottom of Via Las Cumbres, after New York Pizza Department closed. I think it was Forever Fondue. They moved to La Jolla which seemed like a better location for that sort of thing, but maybe not since they only lasted a few years. I think the Melting Pot has the monopoly on fondue in San Diego these days, but I’ve never been.
I haven’t been to The Melting Pot either; it’s apparently a pretty big chain. I didn’t even know it existed until I searched on fondue after your review. There’s one in Austin as well.