Nothing like Alps and fondue to make it feel like Christmas

Restaurant Review: Le Vieux Logis, St. Jorioz, France

Given this year's unseasonably warm winter, a weekend jaunt to Annecy to celebrate an ea
rly Christmas with extended family is likely to be as close as we get to holiday snow. Even there, the snow is only dusting mountain tops. On the valley floor you needed little more than a light jacket to be comfortable.

Whatever the weather, wandering around Annecy's holiday market makes you feel like you've dropped into a Christmas card. Traditional wooden chalet spread across several streets in the picturesque old town, offering a pleasing variety of craft items and luxury foodstuffs that are just that little bit nicer than the typical British market. The lake glistens at the edge of town, castle and church towers loom above you, mountain peaks rim the horizon, Christmas music (ironically, mostly American stuff from the '50s) streams over a sound system. It's everything you want from a Christmas market. But since Annecy isn't particularly known for its market, it's mostly locals thronging the streets.  Even without people to visit, I'd recommend this as a charming pre-Christmas shopping getaway. (Fly via Geneva; Annecy is about 40 minutes from the airport.)

Besides drinking up the atmosphere in the picture-postcard town centre, we have only one "must-do" when we visit friends here: Eating at Le Vieux Logis in the lakeside village of St. Jorioz that our friends now call home. I've mentioned this place briefly here before, but after three visits of reliable quality and family fun, it deserves another mention.

I'm not a skier, but I've seen enough films to have an idea of the idyllic place you want to settle into after a day on the slopes. Stone walled, peak-roofed Alpine architecture, heavy beams, open fire, traditional embroidery on the sheer linen window coverings. It's all here at Le Vieux Logis, without the indignities of gangs of foreigners drinking themselves silly, or the outrageous prices concocted to fleece the tourists. This is an extremely local place: our friends are on first-name basis with the owners and I suspect we were the only ones from beyond the valley dining there than night. Certainly the only English speakers. The food is beautifully simple, because you probably only want one thing when you're in the Alps, right?

Fondue.

Fondue was briefly trendy in the States in the late '70s and early '80s. I remember thinking we were terribly fashionable going to a place called The Melting Pot before senior prom. (I've just looked them up and am amazed to find they still exist.) But the fashion was all about the cooking method rather than the food. Here in the Alps, there's nothing trendy about it. It's just tradition. And they do it well. If there are four of you, as we were, you can have one cheese fondue and one meat, eliminating the need to make a painful choice. The family team running the place brings out the bases, scrambles around to plug you in, then emerge from the kitchen with their pots of steaming joy.  The cheese here has a depth of flavour that is both nutty and grassy; as if you were eating the valley floor itself. Between the groaning platter of bread for dipping in the cheese, and the pile of beef chunks to cook to your taste in  the simmering oil, nobody is going hungry here.  There's a generous mound of salad to complement the main attraction, which works well as a palate cleanser after all those rich flavours. Match that all with jugs of local white wine, and life gets even better.

Le Vieux Logis is also known for their pizza. A traditional wood-fired oven greets you as you walk in the door, and if you can tear yourself away from the fondue you'll be rewarded with a thin and crispy delight that's actually the more delicate dining choice here.

I'd guess that in high skiing season this place is a little less local. Surely, the thousands of skiers who descend upon Annecy's slopes each year must know this place? We're always there out of season, however, so I'll continue to think of it as our little, local secret. Now you know, too.