Dip into Fondue at Bimi’s Canteen

Editor’s note: As a follow up to our profile of Bimi’s Cheese contributor Miriam Rubin shares the details of Bimi’s Canteen, a cheese focused restaurant.

Location

Bimi’s Canteen
19 Main Street, Chatham, New York 12037

Fondue is hot stuff at the newly opened Bimi’s Canteen, a cheese-centric restaurant adjoining Bimi’s Cheese Shop in the village of Chatham, in New York State’s Hudson Valley. The cozy, dark wood-and brick-lined restaurant serves a small, highly curated, ever-changing menu focusing on local Hudson Valley meats, vegetables and of course, cheese. For about five weeks, beginning early December and ending mid-March, they’ll be serving one of the ultimate cheesy, shareable, comfort dishes … fondue!

Why Fondue?

While some of a certain age might remember fondue as a dated, rather drippy dish served from your parent’s long-forgotten (or lost) orange or brown Dansk enameled fondue pot, fondue is back. And for Bimi’s founders and co-owners, Ellen Waggett and Chris Landy, fondue carries a “huge place in their hearts.” As theater students long ago in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they held fondue parties at three A.M. “Fondue is theater,” Waggett said. And as a shared dish, it fits in with the three values of their restaurant: community, camaraderie and cheese.

The couple work in television production and design in New York City, living part-time in the Hudson Valley. They refer to their cheese shop and restaurant as their “side hustle.” “We’re weird restauranteurs,” Waggett said, adding that theater and restaurants share a similar aspiration. “You’re pleasing an audience and doing it perfectly each time.”

Bimi's Canteen Grand Fondue, photo credit Christian Harder

Fondue at Canteen

Fondue at Canteen comes in two sizes. There’s a small pot of fondue ($25), the size they served at a recent press luncheon. Served in a small black pot, it’s set over a flame, keeping the fondue at a bubble. There are chunks of crusty bread on the side to spear and dip. Good for one person or two, add a glass of hard cider or a craft beer and maybe a salad, it’s a light meal or starter on wintry days. Or guests can go bigger, with two or three friends -- their community – and choose the Grand Fondue ($60). The pot of bubbly cheese is paired with a generous platter of sliced steak, chorizo, meatballs, cornichons, apple slices, vegetables and dried fruits, and best of all, thinly sliced crispy, cheesy potatoes. Do you dip these items in the fondue or not? That’s up to you. It’s a platter of plenty and a hearty first course for four or a main for two.

Fondue Cheeses & More Cheese

The Canteen’s fondue is a blend of four Swiss Alpine cow’s milk cheeses: Gruyere; Raclette, the famous creamy melting cheese; Challerhocker, cellar-aged with delicious, crunchy crystals and Ur-Eiche (“old oak”), a modern Swiss raw-milk cheese that’s been washed in oak extract and is made exclusively by women cheesemakers. The cheeses are melted with kirsch, adding a fruity note, Sauvingion Blanc and a bit of cornstarch to keep it all together.

Other Canteen menu offerings include a classic macaroni and cheese, a not-so classic pimiento mac and cheese, a local cheese slate, with cheeses sourced within 120 miles of Chatham, a world cheese slate, and changing starters and entrees plus bouillabaisse, which also has a firm place in the co-owner’s hearts.

Jesse Curtin is the Canteen’s chef and he’s stoked about their fondue, calling it a possible cure for seasonal depression. Drop in and give it a try. They’re open for dinner Thursday through Monday.