Chesa

As you all know, valentines day is creeping up on us. To the guys out there, we all know that valentines day is a complete commercial ripoff designed for the sole purpose of parting us fools from our money. To any girls reading this, Happy valentines day!

This year, the missus and I decided to have our valentines day celebration early - tonight in fact! So we went out to Chesa. Chesa is a nice little Swiss restaurant. Actually, it's the only Swiss restaurant I know of although I suspect there may be another one somewhere in Soho. Soho seems to have a large mix of foods from different cultures so I would be surprised if they didn't have a Swiss restaurant in there somewhere.

Anyway, Chesa is located inside the Peninsula hotel. At this point, those familiar with the location will already know that the restaurant is expensive. However, with Chesa, you really see (and taste) the quality all that money is buying. The decor is fabulous. The restuarant is quite small and decorated to look like the inside of a Swiss chalet. Service, as expected for the Peninsula hotel, is exemplary.

All of the dishes that we had were excellent. For starters we had escargots and foie gras (the foie gras here is very nice - much better than I expected actually!). For the main dish, we had the ox tongue which was very soft and succulent.

However, by far, the highlight of the meal was the cheese fondue. We ordered the fondue vaudoise. This is the most basic and most traditional fondue on the menu (they actually have quite a few varieties of fondue). I considered ordering one of the fancier fondues but I eventually decided to go with basic fondue for the simple reason that I don't eat fondue very often (the last time was at least 6-7 years ago, possibly longer) and I wanted to enjoy the simple yet elegant taste of a basic fondue.

Just in case you have no idea what a fondue is - here is a quick description. The fondue vaudoise is basically comprised of 2 different cheeses melted together with white wine. It arrives in a small pot and placed over buring wax to ensure the cheese is kept hot and runny. You then stab a piece of bread with a fondue fork and run a circle of eight in the pot so that it can soak up some cheese. Then, pop in your mouth and enjoy!

Yes, the meal was expensive - and I say this based on their normal prices and not some inflated "valentines day special" price. However, the quality is such that I feel you really get your money's worth.

Definite thumbs up!!