Melting Pot

Rating:

If you've never had fondue before, you might enjoy the do-it-yourself dining experience offered by the Melting Pot. But if you have had fondue before, it's less likely you'll be happy here. The Melting Pot is part of a national chain, and it feels like one. The traditional French and Swiss fondue dinner has been been transformed into what they refer to as The Melting Pot Experience (their capitals). Your guides for the Experience are fresh-faced kids whose style of service brings TGI Friday's or the Olive Garden to mind. Because customers cook the food themselves on built-in tabletop cookers, restaurant owners don't waste costly square footage on kitchen space, and because the standardized set of sauces, stocks and seasonings all come out of a bottle or a jar (at least they taste that way), there are no high-priced chefs on the payroll. The traditional Swiss cheese and Wisconsin cheese fondues aren't bad, but once the novelty of spearing little chunks of beef or chicken and cooking them yourself wears off, the realization is likely to strike: You could be enjoying much better food, service and ambience elsewhere for a lot less. In a suburban location, this might pass for sophisticated dining, but in downtown Minneapolis, it's just cheesy.