The Cheese Perfection of Fondue

Heritage Soho – the city’s first contemporary fondue restaurant and cocktail bar that reinvents the traditions of cooking hearty classics with inventive flavour spins.

Rated among the best restaurants in London for the Alpine cuisine and featured in the Michelin Guide as a ‘heaven’ for the lovers of cheese fondue, the infamous melting cheese fondue pot from Heritage Soho has become an absolute must try for the city’s diners.

Arranging an authentic fondue set directly at the table in our trendy, yet cosy restaurant setting, we make sure you get the dining experience to remember, transferring you to the rustic Alpine tavern once your melting cheese delight has been served. Ready to dig in?

The closest location to our restaurant: Soho, Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, Mayfair, Fitzrovia

The signature dish of Heritage Soho, a traditional Swiss cheese fondue, is more than just a bowl of delicious melted cheese. Fondue is the ultimate culinary experience in Switzerland and the most popular national dish that every visitor should try.

Our head chef recommended dishes to accompany your fondue spread:

Mains & Starters

Steaks – from £23
Ricotta & Truffle Dumplings - £9.5 | Charcuterie & Cheese Platter - £21.5

Small Eats

Mushroom Croquettes - £1.5 each | Truffle & Parmesan Fries – £5
Parma Ham – £5.5 | Pork Belly – £8.5

Traditionally, a rich dish like fondue is a standalone culinary experience that does not require any side dishes or appetizers apart from bread to eat it in a classic way.

At Heritage, we aim to provide you with a full-bodied form of indulgence, and so serve our fondue pots with a complimentary accompaniment of perfectly paired starters like boiled baby potatoes, pickles, and bread. Those looking for some other unbeatable pairing options, there is a supplement choice of prime quality meats like Parma Ham and Pork Belly, as well as an array of made in-house cold and hot starters, including an exquisite Charcuterie & Cheese Platter and Ricotta & Truffle Dumplings.

Bringing a gourmet piece of Switzerland to London in a form of an authentic fondue flavour that never fails to please, our cheese fondue pots are made of only purely natural cheese specialties coming directly from a trusted cheesemaker in Switzerland who also supplies the cheeses for our sister restaurant Le Museum in Montreux.

Our house-made chocolate fondue dessert

Do you love the idea of having fondue as a sweet treat? Then, you probably will like an idea of enjoying a delicately melting and tangy dish not only as a main, but also as a dessert! On our dessert menu, find our best-kept Chocolate Fondue secret – a delicious blend of melting Swiss dark and milk chocolates that comes with fresh seasonal fruits, marshmallow and home-made donuts, ready to be dipped.

To make our Traditional Fondue we use the most famous and the most delicious of Swiss fondue combinations which is called ‘moitié-moitié’ or ‘half and half’. Following the original recipe dating back to 18th century, our mix contains the best quality, matured cow milk cheeses of Gruyère and Vacherin Fribourgeois combined with white wine as by local artisanal cheese-making traditions.

Truffle Fondue

Those looking for a more sophisticated taste experience should feel excited to try our special take on this authentic flavour, Truffle Fondue, that features Heritage’s classic cheese blend enriched with black truffle shavings and flavoured with truffle oil.

Originated in French canton Valais in the Alps, the dish was invented by the Swiss peasants as a way of making use of leftover bread and cheese to survive in the mountains during colder months when the access to fresh produce was scarce. Over the time some other fondue variations have developed, but a primary reference to the dish served in a communal pot and enjoyed by dipping a chunk of bread in a mixture of melting cheese and wine stayed intact.

The types of fondue-inspired dishes

For Swiss locals, ‘fondue pot’ means a dish featuring melting cheese and nothing else. However, there are some other variations of fondue recipes developed in other cultures:

Fondue Bourgignonne

Country: France
Made of: cubes of chopped beef filet fried in a pot of hot oil
Tomato Fondue
Country: Switzerland
Made of: shredded Gruyere cheese and Emmental cheese, tomatoes or tomato paste, flavoured with white wine

Fondue Chinoise

Country: China
Made of: thinly sliced beef boiled in a pot of broth

Chocolate Fondue

Country: America
Made of: a mix of melting chocolate and accompanying dipping options

Who invented the fondue There is still much debate about where the traditional cheese fondue comes from. For someone it is known as a ‘Swiss Fondue’, while the others refer to the dish as a French creation and call it a ‘Fondue Savoyarde’. Even in Italy the pot of melting cheese named ‘Fonduta Veldostana’ has been a prominent regional specialty for decades. Apart from admitting that the cheese fondue was invented in the West Alps, there is another thing known for sure – the dish has been largely remaining a local Swiss tradition since 1930s when the Swiss Cheese Union proclaimed it to be the national dish of Switzerland, followed by a huge popularity happened between 1970s and 1980s as a result of a widely advertised FIGUGEGL campaign running to boost the sales of Swiss cheese.

It would be true to say that in recent years there has been a boom of innovative ideas that make the dish fantastically versatile. Thanks to a great number of cheese options available on the market, fondue fans try to come up with the creative recipes experimenting with a savoury and slightly sweet Gorgonzola or a spicy-nutty Camembert.

However, the fondue connoisseurs know that the proper cheese selection is a fast-track to getting that authentic taste of the original recipe. Keeping that in mind, if you happen to dine in a fondue restaurant, you should expect to find the classic mix of traditional, firm mountain-style cheeses like Gruyere, Emmental or Gouda that are the cheese varieties showcasing the incredible taste and flavours of this iconic dish.

Other cheese fondue varieties

Fondue Genevoise
Origin: Geneva, Switzerland
Ingredients: grated cheese, either Emmenthal or Gruyere, mixed with a combination of egg yolks, butter, cream, sugar, nutmeg, salt, pepper.

Fondue Jurassienne

Origin: Jura and French-Comté regions
Ingredients: Comté cheese combined with cornflour and wine.

Fondutta alla Valdostana

Origin: Aosta Valley, Italy
Ingredients: Fontina cheese mixed with egg yolks, milk, and flour; sometimes it is enriched with the white truffle shavings served on top of a dish or on the side.

Fondue Savoyarde

Origin: Savoie Region, French Alps
Ingredients: a combination of melted cheeses that are usually Gruyere, Beaufort, Emmental and Comté.