At the fantastic cheese fondue restaurant Smelt, the evening ends with the nun
Cheese fondue restaurant Smelt works with top-quality cheeses and always ends the evening with the nun – so incredibly delicious! Yes, even when it’s thirty degrees outside.
Cheese fondue while the sparrows are falling off the roof? Any true cheese lover knows: that’s no problem at all. On a weekday, it’s best to make a reservation, because Smelt is popular. That’s because of the insanely delicious cheeses they use (from cheese shop De Kaaskamer van Amsterdam), which result in top-quality cheese fondue, as well as the lovely atmosphere.
Small terrace
Smelt is located opposite the cheese shop and next to Café De Doffer on Runstraat (one of De 9 straatjes in the Jordaan). The old bar area where Café de Doffer began 50 years ago has been transformed into Smelt restaurant. Inside, it still feels like a cosy brown café – outside, there’s a small terrace with four tables.
Small, but oh-so-good menu
The fondues are made with the finest French cheeses (abondance, comté, emmentaler français, bleu des causses), Dutch cheeses (petit doruvael, tynjetaler, bunker blosse) and Swiss cheeses (gruyère alpage, vacherin fribourgeois, appenzeller noir), and served with artisan bread from Bakkerij Mama and fresh seasonal vegetables. There’s also a truffle fondue (with raclette à la truffe, doruvael truffle and boeren gatenkaas) and a Funky Falcon beer fondue (with Montfoortse cheese, gatenkaas and oud belegen Beemster). The fondues cost between 20 and 24 euros.
You can also choose from a few seasonal starters that pair perfectly with the fondue, such as the charcuterie platter (14 euros), which you can order at the same time as the fondue (meat in your cheese fondue, mmm!).
Freshness with richness
We order the Swiss and French fondue and simply can’t decide which is our favourite. They’re both incredibly delicious! The wines on the menu are mainly white and all fresh. They also have red wines, but the tastiest and best option is to drink a crisp white with your cheese fondue. In any case, freshness is the key word with a rich fondue. That’s why they also serve Mama’s fantastic sourdough bread, along with cornichons and pearl onions. We drink the Spanish Verdejo from Celeste – a perfect combination. Tip: pour a little wine into the cheese as well; the wine affects the flavour of the fondue and makes it smoother.
The nun
Johan, one of the owners, is incredibly friendly and enthusiastic – he’s working by himself this evening, but there’s no sign of stress. He doesn’t want to pressure us, yet he does offer some gently insistent advice to eat as much as possible, because then comes the nun. Any true connoisseur immediately knows what we mean; the nun is the most delicious part of the entire cheese fondue. In France, they always let the fondue burn hard so that the cheese quickly sticks to the hot caquelon (fondue pot). Wonderfully delicious, but we’re going for the old Swiss tradition (la religieuse , or the nun), in which Johan cracks a raw egg into the pot when almost everything is gone and, stirring it for us, makes the most delicious scrambled eggs of our lives.
Vegans welcome too
Smelt is truly a delicious and lovely place for lovers of really, really good cheese fondue. And… if you’d like to bring along a vegan friend, you can, because (upon request) they also serve vegan fondue made with fermented cashews.
Smelt, Runstraat 12, De 9 straatjes, Amsterdam
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