Thanks to Captain America, whenever I hear the word fondue, I want to respond with ‘Do you two… fondue?’
Which the appropriate answer is yes to all the fondue. What isn’t there to love about bread, cheese, meat and chocolate?
Since moving in April it feels like the summer has flown by and getting time together for date nights have been a bit challenging. When we do have a night off together planning a date night is a great way for us to reconnect.
Last weekend, we took spent a romantic date night up at the Louisville Melting Pot to enjoy a fantastic meal. Whenever we can celebrate time together as a couple it’s special so there’s no reason to wait until a holiday for a romantic night out – especially since we typically can’t celebrate holiday’s on the day of due to work.
Before our visit I’d been to a couple of Melting Pot locations, but had not personally visited the Louisville location. Louisville is suburb of Boulder and is about 30 mins outside of Denver. The Melting Pot is located right in the middle of downtown Louisville giving ample opportunity to take a quick walk through the main area of town and explore how cute the city is before dinner. You can stroll through most of the main part of town in about 10 minutes and call it your daily ‘exercise’.
Outside of how fantastic the food is, one of my favorite things about the Melting Pot is how each location uses the history of the town and building to make a completely unique experience that you can explore each time you visit. Louisville began as a mining town, and it’s rumored that tunnels remain under the city to this day.
According to town lore the tunnels under the Melting Pot were used by bootleggers during the prohibition to move alcohol between speakeasies. The building itself was built in the 80’s so while these tunnel entrances look historic, they are actually an homage to the history of the area.
I love a good history story, but I know you are really here to learn about the food!
The Melting Pot is famous for the amazing four course meals including three different kinds of fondue. You can definitely go to the Melting Pot for just dessert or cheese but for the full experience you can’t beat the entire meal.
You don’t have to have the exact same meal, but you do need to pick a cheese, cooking style, and dessert you’ll both enjoy. We each started off with a different salad (Wisconsin Wedge & the California) and a charcuterie board.
The charcuterie board is not a part of the 4 course meal but our amazing server recommended we give it a try with our cheese course and she was RIGHT. Adding just a bit of mustard to a piece of prosciutto before dipping it into cheese fondue is just about the most amazing appetizer you could get your hands on.
I am a gorgonzola (aka Blue Cheese) addict so when I saw they had a Bacon Gorgonzola cheese option I knew we had to try it. Made with fontina cheese, gorgonzola, white wine, garlic [ask for extra!] and bacon it was fantastic with all of the dipping options. My favorite was on the green apples. The sharpness of the cheese and savory bacon bites are the perfect contrast against the sweetness of the apples.
For the main course we both did The Classic which includes two kinds of sirloin, pork, shrimp and chicken breast. On my meal, I asked to swap out the pork for Elk Sausage and it was an AMAZING decision. In addition to the meats that came with our main entree, you can always add on a lobster tail so since it was a special night out we went for the full experience!
Your meat all comes raw and you cook it in the fondue pot in your chosen cooking method. We went with one of the most popular styles, the Coq Au Vin. Cooked with wine and spices, it really adds a rich flavor to every piece of meat you cook.
Fondue is a social experience. Each piece goes into the pot to cook and you can catch up while dinner cooks making it a much more personal experience than just having a ready made dish brought to the table. With busy schedules and the allure of phones, its easy to go out to dinner and barely say a word to each other. Fondue instead takes away those distractions and helps give time to reconnect instead. For a romantic date night, I couldn’t ask for a more special way to spend the evening.
For dessert we decided to try something a bit different from our usual go-to of chocolate and peanut butter and opted for the Banana’s Foster. You start with white chocolate and add bananas, dulce de leche and cinnamon before flambéing it all. Just look at that sparkler show with the cinnamon!
Dessert comes with marshmallows, fruit, brownies, blondies and pound cake to dip. My favorite was by far the brownies. I’d like them soak in pot long enough to warm up the chocolate bits in the brownies making it the perfect marriage of dark and white chocolate.
By the end of the meal we had to call uncle and couldn’t quite finish up all of the dessert treats!
With Drew’s schedule it can be hard for us to get away together, so taking a night out like this is perfect!
Looking for more Denver Date Night ideas? Check out my review of Marcella’s Ristorante.
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Disclaimer: The Melting Pot hosted us at the restaurant for the evening. I was not compensated in any way for this review and all thoughts an opinions are my own.
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