La Fondue

5280 Restaurant Week

La Fondue's website

1040 15th Street 

Denver, CO 80202

(303) 534-0404

I went on a girls’ night out with 3 girl friends to La Fondue on a Friday night. I used the evening as an excuse to get dressed up in my new red corset and a black skirt. Rawr. Our reservation wasn’t until 8:30pm which made for a late dinner.

We were lucky enough to have a table that had two fondue pots on it so we got to order some different things. The first course was a cheese fondue. We got both choices which were Aged Cheddar: aged sharp cheddar and Emmenthaler cheeses in a light garlic beer base, and Three Cheeses: Monterey Jack, Fontina, and Gorgonzola cheeses in a white wine base with fresh ground pepper. They were served with green apples, carrots, celery and bread. The cheeses were heavenly and delicious. Our waiter put in a nice serving of garlic in the cheddar cheese.

Next came the second course which was salads. We all ended up ordering the Mushroom Trio: Fresh Crimini, Enochi, Button mushrooms, Iceberg & Romaine lettuce, Soy Ginger Vinaigrette. I enjoyed the soy ginger vinaigrette as well as the exotic combination of mushrooms. I ordered it reminiscing about the mushroom salad at the Melting Pot which was 80% mushrooms. Sadly, this one just had a few of each kind on it and was more lettuce than mushrooms.

The third course was our main fondue. We had two pots of the vegetable broth since the spiced wine was an additional fee. We had a choice of meat or vegetarian dippers. The Meat Dish option came with: Oscar Filet Mignon, Breast of Chicken, Marinated Garlic Sirloin & Shrimp. The Vegetarian Dish option came with: Asparagus, Hearts of Artichoke, Portabella Mushrooms, String Beans, Sweet Potato, Vegetable Dumplings & Gnocchi. I got to try some of each option and the meats were good. We got about 6 sauces to go with the meats. I missed some of the sauces from Melting Pot. These ones weren’t as flavorful. We had a cocktail sauce that could have been angrier, a horseradish sauce, barbecue sauce and some others that I forget now. The vegetarian option was new. It was just as delicious and still let’s vegetarians enjoy the fun of fondue. My favorite was the gnocchi.

For the fourth course, we had a choice of different chocolate fondues. Unfortunately they only gave us one pot of chocolate so we chose the Milk Chocolate Fondue. This was served with: Rice Crispy, Fudge Brownies, Pound Cake, Cheesecake, Marshmallows, and fresh fruits including strawberries, bananas, kiwi, and pineapple. This was very similar to the Melting Pot’s chocolate fondue. The marshmallows were the softest I’ve ever felt. I enjoyed all of the fresh fruit.

While the food was amazing, I was not very pleased with the atmosphere. This was mostly because we were seated in the back near a door that was propped open into a brightly lit hallway. It killed the mood. It was fun trying La Fondue and comparing, but I’m going to stick with The Melting Pot. I’m lucky to live so close to it!