La Fondue — Restaurant in Saratoga

A very expensive, very "okay" meal. Definitely interesting, definitely an experience, but also definitely a grift when it comes to what you get for the money. This experience just doesnt measure up to the caliber of meal that you would get for $200 at another "fancy restaurant". 2 stars feels low, however nothing we felt like $200 quality or amount of food.

The service with Connor was top notch, one of the better experiences I have ever had. No complaints courteous, attentive, walked us through everything expertly.

The salads were definitely pre-prepped, not super fresh. Dressing was good though.

The cheese fondue was delicious but pairings to dip were lacking. Just plain bread and raw veggies. Could do with some variety and toasting on the bread maybe some crackers or something to add variety to the appetizer xp. The cheese was the star, I suppose thats the point but some crunch and variety would have made it a lot better.

The main course was as others describe a "dainty" amount of meat. You are paying like 67 bucks a head and that is for 5 different meats (lets not forget its a 4 course meal either)... but literally 2 bitesize pieces of meat per person. Less than half a chicken breast of meat amongst the 4 poultry options included in the restraunts namesake, "La Fondue's" total of 6 peats.. for variety we got the veggies too, like 62 for veggies.. raw veggies that wouldn't be put of place coming from a veggie tray.. plus some garlic cloves, a few tofu squares, and halves of little potatoes.

The preperation of the food was my least favorite part. SO you are cooking all this yourself with skewers and rubber spatulas.. have you ever tried flipping and maneuvering a cherry tomato sized piece of meat with a screwdriver and dorm room mini silicone spatula? No? You will. So now you are responsible for not over or undercooking these small pairs of 67 dollar meat.. and trying not to think about the fact you are paying 67 bucks to essentially heat up

Me and my significant other went here to celebrate something. A very common event by some other patrons we saw. You can read my pros and cons below but, ultimately, we both decided that we would never come back. Although my SO had treasured this place and always wanted to go again (as she had gone when she was younger and had a nice time), she decided that this experience was done for her. She didn't feel the need to ever come back and I feel similarly for reasons below. I didn't have really high expectations coming in but I did have some.

We had a bottle of sparkling wine. Le Freak. Salad. 1 cheese fondue. 1 chocolate fondue. A typical groupon deal that's normally about $400-450 but through groupon, much less. For our celebration, I would've paid full price but we found this deal. So good for me. It was more than enough to fill us both.

Pros: Food was generally good. I liked the cheese fondue we had (stinky something - it was a garlic heavy cheese). The spinach salad I had was quite good and I'm not one to normally like salads. I'd actually eat that salad on the regular... and, like I said, I don't eat salads. Service was pretty great. I really liked the waiter we had as he was nice and had a good sense of humor. Can't speak for all the waiters - I felt like we lucked out a little bit.

Meh: Atmosphere is not in my taste. In some ways, yes, it's nice. In others, it's not so great. It's so dark that it's hard to read the menu. People get out their phones to read it. If you want to really admire your surroundings, well, you can't. It's got a lot of semi-transparent black drapes and it's so dark you won't see much anyway. Music was good though...

Cons: There were quite a few people. Pretty surprising for a weekday, to be honest. And not just any people but a lot of kids. I was very surprised by that. Turns out a lot of rich folks with kids like to come here. The majority of people there were families with their kids. I was very surprised by that and so was my SO. We both had the idea that this was mostly a special venue for people - but nope - it's just seen as the Red Lobster for the rich. This really devalued the experience for us as we just felt like this was any other restaurant where you'd take your kids.

The prices are outrageously high considering the rest. $300 for a couple pounds of various meats that you have to cook yourself. I get the appeal of variety but it's not $300 variety. Come on... They don't even source the stuff from the best places. The wagyu is from snake river farms and wasn't anywhere near the best wagyu I've had. (SO is in wagyu biz)

We had the "le freak" where you get a taste of all the meats - this is no knock on the restaurant - but a lot of the meats were hard to differentiate in taste. This could be due to the fact that you are doing the cooking. For this kind of stuff, I'd really rather prefer a professional cook do it as you're trusting someone who has never cooked "Australian Kangaroo" (as opposed to all those non-Australian Kangaroos!) to do it just right. We surely cooked some of them improperly and overdid it. Some of my peers have said, "Yeah, for the price, you know, I expect to not have to cook my own food." It's why some won't go anymore. I knew it upfront but having done it now, I'm not into it. If I wanted to cook my food, I'd get all I can eat Korean...

This place is NOT WORTH THE MONEY. If you want fondue, go literally anywhere else. It honestly might even be worth the hours of driving to get to the next closest one than wasting your time here.

We used to come here all the time, but they have just gotten worse and worse. After a several year break, hoping they would improve, we tried again. We will not be going back.

They have a very limited selection compared to other fondue places for their cheese and chocolate, which are both incredibly bland. I'm talking 6 cheese options and 6 chocolate options with no flavor. We ordered the stinking rose (garlic and swiss) and it was just melted swiss cheese. I could make better fondue at home for FAR cheaper.

The atmosphere is also not worth the price. They had us in a backroom that was SO DARK that we had to use the flashlights from our phones to see our food. I'm talking as dark as a bedroom with a single nightlight. We asked if anything could be done to two different people, and they both said they would look into it, and we never heard from them about it again. I literally had to hold my phone over the grill the ENTIRE time I was cooking because otherwise my food was impossible to see.

The food took forever to get to us, and no one covered our poor waitress when she went on her lunch, so we sat there for a full half an hour, having finished our meat course, with no one to check on us. We had to chase someone down to make them serve us MULTIPLE TIMES.

In the end, our server revealed to us that the service fee is split evenly, meaning that the staff that abandoned us and her were still going to get money despite having to be forced to do their jobs. We gave her a tip, which she deserved, but it hurt that we had to pay way more for garbage. Honestly, our entire bill should have gone to her and the kitchen staff and no one else.

For three people, it came out to $200+. That is obscene considering how bad the service AND food was. You can't charge that much and have bland, tasteless food while abandoning your customers to empty, dark rooms. We had to keep chasing people down again and again, something we shouldn't have to do in a "fancy" restaurant. I've had better service at Denny's.

They snubbed us at every turn, from when we walked in, to us desperately trying to pay so we could finally leave the dark room. It honestly felt like they thought we weren't "good" enough to eat there, something I've never had a problem with in other "fancy" restaurants.

I am never going back, and I suggest that you go anywhere else if possible. This was an expensive mistake, but at least we've learned it for sure this time, and we won't be making it ever again.

(Also, the zebra print chairs have fibers on them that stab you through your clothes. I can't believe they still have them after all...