Cheese Fondue Savoyarde
Prep Time 15 minutes 
Cook Time 15 minutes 
Total Time 30 minutes 
Servings 4Ingredients
- 300 gr Beaufort cheese grated
- 300 gr Comté cheese grated
- 300 gr Emmental cheese
- 1 clove garlic
- 750 ml dry white wine
- 1 ½ tsp corn starch
- 30 ml Kirsch cherry brandy, optional for digestion
Equipment
Instructions
1. Prepare the pot
- Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the cut sides of a garlic clove. This gently flavours the pot without overpowering the taste of the fondue.
2. Heat the wine
- Pour half the bottle of dry white Savoie wine into the pot and heat over medium heat. Bring it almost to a boil but do not let it boil over.
3. Mix cornflour and Kirsch
- In a small bowl, combine 1 ½ teaspoons of cornflour with about 30ml of Kirsch until smooth. This will help stabilize the cheese mixture.
4. Melt the cheeses
- Gradually add the grated cheeses (Beaufort, Comté, and Emmental) to the hot wine, stirring constantly in a figure-eight motion. Add a handful at a time and stir until fully melted before adding more.
5. Thicken the fondue
- Once all the cheese is melted and smooth, stir in the cornflour and Kirsch mixture gently until the fondue thickens and develops a glossy texture.
6. Season
- Add a pinch of freshly ground black pepper and optionally a light dusting of nutmeg. Avoid adding salt as the cheese and Kirsch provide enough seasoning.
7. Serve and enjoy
- Place the fondue pot over the fondue burner to keep warm. Serve straight away with bite-sized chunks of crusty baguette, inviting everyone to dip and swirl their bread through the luscious, melted cheese!
Notes
- The triple cheese blend of Beaufort, Comté, and Emmental is key for authentic Savoyarde fondue, balancing nuttiness, creaminess, and melting texture.
- Using the same dry white Savoie wine for cooking and drinking with the meal enhances harmony. Apremont is a classic choice.
- Stirring in figure eights is said to improve creaminess, though feel free to stir in whatever way feels right, just keep it gentle to avoid curdling.
- Kirsch is traditional but optional; it adds a touch of aromatic depth and helps with digestion.
About this recipe
When in France, you have to melt cheese! I grew up in the south, so cheese fondue Savoyarde was a Christmas dinner treat, just like raclette was. And honestly, I was looking forward to the holidays more for this gooey dinner than for the actual presents. And the best thing about being a grown up is that now I can make it whenever I want, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve even done it in full summer because I just really craved it. Don’t judge me. Winter is obviously when this cheese fondue dish gets made the most, but there are no rules besides: don’t drop your bread in the pot. I’ll explain why in a minute.
Where cheese fondue comes from
We technically stole this cheese fondue dish from our Swiss neighbours. It wasn’t actually a traditional Savoyard dish at all. The historian Marie-Thérèse Hermann noted that fondue didn’t really exist as part of traditional Savoyard culture. It only developed after the Second World War, and only in the northern part of Savoie that bordered Switzerland, because that’s where people had picked it up from across the border.
So the real origins goes back to Switzerland, where medieval shepherds in the canton of Fribourg were already melting leftover hardened cheese with a bit of wine to make a warm, filling meal from things that would otherwise go to waste. The recipe gradually spread, and it was the Swiss dairy industry in the 1930s that really pushed it, as a way of reviving interest in Swiss cheese against foreign competition. When a fondue pot appeared at the 1940 World’s Fair in New York, the dish became an international phenomenon, and that’s when it really started crossing borders.
In France, it was the boom in ski tourism from the 1950s onwards that embedded fondue into Savoyard identity, and then the 1979 film Les Bronzés font du ski, which has a legendary fondue scene, that permanently fixed it in the French imagination. Not many dishes can claim a cult film helped make them famous, but fondue can.
Picking the right cheeses
The best cheese for fondue Savoyarde is created with three cheeses. We start with the Beaufort who is the backbone: robust, creamy, and deeply savoury with that characteristic Alpine milk flavour. Then we add the beloved by all French comté which has a fruity edge and a slight sharpness that lifts the whole blend. And finally, some Emmental to smooths everything out with a gentle nuttiness and who gives the fondue that satisfying stretchiness when you pull your bread out.
The wine is not optional in a true cheese fondue. The acidity in the wine is what liquefies the cheese proteins and keeps the whole emulsion smooth. Without it, you’d just have a lumpy pan of melted cheese. Use a dry white from Savoie if you can find one to keep it traditional. Apremont is the classic choice. And whatever you use, make sure it’s something you’d happily drink alongside the fondue, which you should!
The essential fondue melting pot
The caquelon is the fondue melting pot, and it really is what makes this dinner happens. It comes with extra long two-pronged forks, which you use to stab your baguette chunks securely so they don’t fall off into the cheese. The pot goes in the centre of the table, everyone gets their own plate for pickles and salad on the side, and from there it’s just a question of dipping and talking….and dipping again.
The fondue pot needs to distribute heat evenly and hold a steady temperature throughout the meal. A cast iron fondue melting pot is the best thing you can ever buy for this dish. The cast iron holds heat steadily without hot spots and the interior doesn’t interfere with the flavour of the wine and cheese. It’s the traditional way.
How to eat fondue Savoyarde
It’s better to use bread that’s a day old rather than fresh. Fresh bread is too soft, it falls apart when you dip it and you’ll lose it in the fondue, which brings me to the rule:
Whoever loses their bread in the caquelon has a forfeit to pay. Traditionally, that means buying a round of drinks or doing a dare. Whether you enforce this depends entirely on the company. It does make everyone pay much closer attention!
And at last, when the fondue is almost finished, there’s a thin crust of toasted cheese left at the bottom of the caquelon called “la religieuse.” It gets carefully scraped off and eaten, and it’s the most flavourful, concentrated mouthful of the whole meal. Please don’t let it go to waste. Whoever cleans the pot gets it, which is a good incentive to be the last one dipping!
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