The Melting Pot

Went for our Honeymoon and had the Sweetheart Deal and it was awesome! Intimate booth in «Lover’s Lane» with table beautifully decorated with vase of fresh roses, rose petals, a picture frame, and menu personalized with your names wishing us Happy Anniversary. Waitress came over, served out Champagne and explained the process as it was our first time. Each course came in a great pace, not rushing but attentive service. The food was fun and delicious. Appetizer in cheese dip was great, salad was average, main course was delicious, and dessert was to die for. The only thing I’d change is menu is limited to 2 choices with this special Sweetheart Deal. At end of dinner you leave with a vase of roses, a framed picture of your evening, and a gift bag with champagne glasses. A very romantic, great evening.

No room to complain about the time it takes for the chef to cook your food. You cook it yourself ! A fun, unique experience. They offer options for each fondue course so that you can choose which cooking style you prefer. Giving it 4 stars because not every option I have tried was the greatest whereas others were amazing. (I found its best to stick to the simples here such as plain. Cheddar for the cheese fondue and the plain chocolate for the dessert fondue). A night out to the Melting pot is best to be reserved for special occasions, as it is very expensive, definitely not a regular weeknight kind of place. Don’t expect to spend less than $ 100 for two if you want the whole fondue experience. Be prepared to leave with a hole in your wallet and left over chocolate on your face.

The melting pot is very Delicious i have a Friend that works here and i had a nice Experience if you love Chocolate and Fondue your gonna love this place i had the Chicken there its Pre Cooked and you cook it your self and i was amazed at how fast you cook each piece it takes like 2 minutes each dish takes no more then 2 – 3 minutes to cook you just put it in the pot and let it sit for a minute or 2 or 3 and then its Done save room for Dessert if you love Chocolate you will be in Chocolate Heaven they have lots of Delicious things Smores they have Chocolate covered Strawberry’s i Definitely would come back to that place the only thing tho make sure you check your Bill before you leave make sure its correct they made a Mistake on some of the Bills but they were good about making it right and fixing it

Service is extremely slow.
Every time I have driven around back the restaurant, the waiters and staff are smoking out by the dumpsters, maybe thats where they are hanging out while they should be attending to their tables, refilling water and asking how our meal is.
Bread is bland, sweet and sour sauce was not edible, apple shapes are cut odd.
For corporate: The menu is confusing, you MUST simplify it. One of our menus had an extra page of the 40 year fondue limited time deal for a 3 course $ 40 dinner. Yet the other menus didnt have this sheet in it, odd. Then there’s the 4 course experience option, then theres mix and match… it’s just too many options and the waiter had to explain it all and he was even getting confused.

I really enjoy coming here!
I have come here for a number of occasions with my family, my fiancé, and now I typically go with one of my friends for a girls night and we have the best time.
If you plan on having a few drinks, the train station is at the back of the parking lot, so it’s just a quick walk away, which is great.
When I sit in the restaurant for the full meal, I tent to order the coq au vin which is seriously delicious! It really adds a beautiful flavor to the food — and I highly suggest ordering extra green goddess dip, they recommend you put it on your vegetables, but it is so good that I usually slather it on everything!
Lately, my friend and I have been sitting in the bar for happy hour (5−8pm) and doing the salad, cheese, and chocolate fondue. During happy hour (which is only in the bar) the cheese and chocolate fondue is half off and cocktails are $ 6! It’s really great and plenty of food.
The bartenders are always really nice and if you ever want any extra «dippers» they will gladly provide them!
Can’t wait to come back!

My wife and I swung in for dessert and coffee. We were asked to wait while they cleaned a table. Then a second woman said we could sit in the bar. We sat at a table in the bar for 15 minutes and the bartender completely ignored us. 15 minutes later, one of the hostesses came in and had a private conversation with the bartender looking at us. She then came by the table and said if we sat at the actual bar they could serve us. Really? I’ll give my money to someone else.
We walked down to the Darien Social club and the service was great, coffee was great and dessert was great. Melting Pot wasn’t so customer friendly.

This restaurant meets me half way. A great concept is there but the spot always seems a little tight and crowded for the service I lack, and the prices I choose to pay. Fondue will always be fun, but the quality of presence in a dining experience is key. But, Ill be back, who doesn’t love melted cheese?!

The experience was over-​priced with cheap ingredients. Stale bread, odd-​shaped Apple chunks, bits and pieces of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Salad was not tossed in dressing, just house dressing drizzled over the top. Broth was not seasoned and with lots of sliced button mushrooms floating around making it difficult to find the food that you are cooking in the broth. Yin-​Yang chocolate fondue is the best part of the 4-​course dinner with many choices of ingredients for dipping. I almost forgot to mention, our server never stop by the table to ask if we were doing ok throughout the meal or to help/​show us how to turn the heat down so the cheese fondue doesn’t burn. He finally realized that it was our first time to the restaurant during our third course with the broth.

Going to this restaurant was definitely an experience, something you won’t get from any other restaurant. I suggest if going to get all the courses since all of them were more delicious than the last and you’ll most likely want all the dipping and conversation to continue! It was definitely the most fun I’ve had eating out in a while! For birthdays or any other celebration, we walked in and it said happy birthday on TV screen at the entrance and they set up a table with balloons and took a picture of our party and gave it to us that night framed. Great keepsake to take home to remember any occasion you went to celebrate.

The food is usually quite delicious, and the restaurant is very nice.
However, the service is incredibly slow. Every time we’ve gone (probably over a dozen times), I’ve had to spend several minutes looking around and flagging down waiters, which kind of kills the mood. More than half of the time, I had to get up and physically hunt down waiters, sometimes more than once a meal. This kind of service is unacceptable for a restaurant that costs upwards of $ 40 a person. If you have a large party and can keep a conversation going for a long time, and you can afford it, then go for it. Otherwise, as much as I love the food, I cannot recommend this restaurant.

Went here on ⁶⁄₂₃ with my girlfriend for our anniversary. I booked the sweetheart package and was blown away by what they offered. Loved how we got personalized menus. Definitely going back.

The food is bland — no taste. The cheese tastes like it came from Stop & Shop — sale rack: bad, the bread for dipping was bland. WHERES THE TASTE? The dipping sauces were nothing but colored fructose syrup (Costco by the gallon?). Food was HORRIBLE. Nothing tasted as though it had been actually prepared in a restaurant kitchen. For the price, that is insane.
Service was mediocre and slow at best. The atmosphere was quiet, except for the party in the adjacent room with loud singing and screaming. (What is this, Fudruckers?)
This place is nothing more than a low end hibachi restaurant with pots where you have to do your own cooking. Absolutely no redeeming quality to bring me back — well, maybe at ¹⁄₃ of the price for a 5 yr olds birthday party… That said, I’m sure the profit margins are great.

I had a great first-​time experience here with my friend and her son. I took my friend here for her birthday, and we enjoyed the unique dining experience and the friendly staff. My friend’s 6-​year-​old son enjoyed cooking his own food (with mom’s supervision, of course). My favorites were mushrooms and broccoli dipped in batter. I recommend cooking with oil. The dessert was fantastic. We will definitely come here again for girls’ night.

We started our itinerary of immersion with two cheese concoctions — J’s fave «Fiesta,» a Cheddar cheese blend with lager beer, jalapeño peppers and salsa; and my new obsession «Traditional Swiss,» a blend of Gruyère and Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses, with white wine, garlic, nutmeg, lemon and Kirschwasser. Yeah, I didn’t know what Kirschwasser was either, so I looked it up. It’s basically cherry brandy. And I’m definitely buying some because I’m definitely planning to spend my days and nights recreating this stuff until I perfect it. It’s that delicious!!! These cheeses were made in front of us by our server, much to our delight and amusement, who brought green apples, tortilla chips, vegetables and bread chunks to dip into each golden gloriousness.
And that was just the first course.
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I’ve been going to the Melting Pot for close to 30 years. The original was not far from where I grew up.
This location is fabulous. Great servers, amazing bartender (Neil), and the management does everything they can to keep people happy.
Yes, you cook your own food. It’s fondue, people.
The only thing I don’t like is when I leave, I tend to smell like fondue.
Best cheese: cheddar.
Best salad: house
Best cooking method: the oil. get extra green goddess and mushrooms and that can be a meal in itself.
Best dessert: classic with dark chocolate and peanut butter

The menu seems designed to obfuscate the diner to overcharge you. Decent food. Good service. If not for kid’s birthday we wouldn’t come here.

Great date spot. The impression is good as soon as you get out of your car, with a well-​maintained, small park-​like area dominated by a lighted fountain. Clean, modern and pleasantly decorated inside.
We tried the four-​course meals, the Classic Combo and the Pacific Rim Combo. Our server, Pete, explained various options for us, and prepared the fondue for our cheese course at table expertly, while presenting enough information to keep our interest («this is just a little beer to round out the sauce»). We tried the Fiesta Cheese sauce, which was served with bread, tortilla chips and apples for dipping.
I won’t do that again! The bread was stale, obviously cut up long before it was served and left exposed to the air. There were no defects with the tortilla chips, but dipping them was just too much like nachos and cheese sauce in a movie theater. I don’t know what I was thinking with that choice! The apples were a perfect dipping selection, easy to spear with the fork, unlikely to fall off, and nicely complemented by the cheese.
We selected the Coq au Vin sauce but found it to be unremarkable. The cuts of meat seemed to be of very high quality. The duck breast in particular was tender and flavorful. The shrimp were fresh and sweet. We won’t order the Classic Combo again, though. It was dominated by big, dull chunks of bland chicken. The array of dipping sauces looks impressive, but there isn’t enough of any of them, particularly when you try transferring them to the various compartments on your plate. To be fair, Pete was very attentive and brought (unasked) a refill of the teriyaki sauce, but every one of the sauces ran out before the mains did.
We were served broccoli, cauliflower, mushroom caps and a few small chunks of red potato. Overall, the vegetables were disappointing. The broccoli wasn’t bad, but the cauliflower were just tiny, broken up bits that were impossible to spear on the fondue forks. The potato chunks took forever to cook, and the mushroom caps just didn’t cook or dip very well.
We had the Flaming Turtle fondue for dessert, and holy cow, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Pete whipped chopped pecans into the chocolate sauce, drizzled some unidentified liquor over it and set it aflame. He extinguished it very gradually with careful mixing, it was showy without being overly flashy.
For dipping there were brownies, blondies, strawberries, chocolate-​dusted and toasted-​coconut-​covered marshmallows… and, inexplicably, cut-​up Rice Krispy Treats. Maybe they were an emergency substitute, as Pete informed us that they were «out of pound cake», which of course is a perfect fondue dessert item. This seemed like a pretty glaring error. How do you run out of pound cake in a fondue restaurant at 5:30 on a Friday night? Seriously, you can send somebody to the 7 – 11 for some Sara Lee… dip it in chocolate and it would be delicious, plus it would throw rocks at Rice Krispy Treats.
Dinner at The Melting Pot is very much an experience. If you’re looking for something different, have plenty of time and don’t mind spending a few bucks, it’s entertaining and enjoyable. In our case at least, the service was excellent as well. Cut up the bread just before bringing it to table, improve the vegetable selection, add the pound cake back in, and you’d be at five stars.

Excellent everything. Eric was superb and the food was fantastic. Look for Eric when you visit. He is the guy with blond hair and large gauges in his ears. He made our experience perfect. Mom and Dad approved. Kids approved and encouraged.

I might preface my review by saying that I have eaten here countless times, because I have a craving at least twice a year. I will also mention that making the most out of any fine-​dining experience requires patience in order to ensure the best food every time.
With that said, fondue is a hands-​on experience. Your entrée is cooked by you, so if this is not your thing, do not set your expectations to love it. Instead go in with an open mind to try something new.
When you enter the restaurant, which is always well-​maintained and clean, you might be asked to sit at the bar while your table is prepared. For five minutes you get a chance to sit at the bar and try some drinks. The bartender is always on point and consistent, so don’t let this aspect of your time here get overlooked– try a specialty cocktail.
When seated, you are given a menu that might confuse you, so ask questions!
The cheese fondue is where you begin your four-​course experience. I have tried most of the cheeses, and most of the specials, but the spinach artichoke is in another league. The delicate balance between tangy artichokes and rich cheese make this a winner every time. The fiesta, a mix between cheese and salsa, though with an elegant spin, is also a favorite if you like it a bit spicy. Cheese is served with rye and white breads, tortilla chips, green apples, and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower.
Next is the salad course, a small salad to introduce something light into the meal. When I say that my favorite Caesar salad ever is from the Pot, you must believe me. The crunchy and sweet pine nuts, with a perfect balance of romaine, dressing, croutons and cheese knock this out of the park, consistently.
The entrée experience is incredibly unique — you are given a plate of raw meats, and using the fondue forks, your job is to cook your meat to the desired temperature.
ProTip: If you get oil and tend to be impatient, your food will be greasy. Anybody with any common sense knows that oil not at the right temperature does not give the meat/​veggies the required sear on the outside so the oil will penetrate inside. To that point, if you put 15 different items in there all at once, the same will happen. Let the oil sit, test it, and take your time to make sure the oil temperature stays up.
I tend to use vegetable broth as my cooking method, because for me, the array of different sauces makes entrée stand out. The green goddess, a cream cheese/​herb based spread; the terriyaki sauce; the curry sauce; the Gorgonzola port; and several others. Your meats come with potatoes, broccoli, and mushrooms. I might suggest a side of pastas (for an extra cost), but those are all quite fantastic as well.
Finally, chocolate… I have tried every chocolate, but I always go back for the straight dark chocolate, because my preference is to keep it simple. Some other favorites are the cookies and cream marshmallow dream, and snickerdoodle (not on the menu) which has peanut butter plus in it. The variety in dippers, from fresh fruit to amazing brownies rounds out a meal that sends me into a food comma every time. If you complain about not having enough to eat, I am impressed.
The food aside, every time I step foot inside this restaurant, I can’t speak enough about the wait staff, the managers, and everyone that makes this a seamless experience. They all go out of their way to make your time with them special, from party favors, or birthday chocolate covered strawberries, to making sure you are happy when something unexpected happens (this is the food industry, nothing is ever perfect) — the extra steps to make sure it is as high-​quality of an experience compensates for any mistakes. Despite this being part of a franchise, this is independently owned and operated, and some of the same staff I met here when they first opened almost ten years ago are still there.
If you take your first trip or your fifth, make sure to ask questions if you are confused, and don’t expect a table on weekends, better to plan ahead and make a reservation so there is no confusion or disappointments.
TLDR: Amazing food, top-​notch service, varied but excellent atmosphere; impatience and lack of common sense on your part might hurt your experience.

Where to begin on this awful excursion! I went to meet a party of around 12 here on a Saturday. The hostess promptly informed us that they had lost the reservation, and had no way of seating us right then. We ended up staying for another 45 mins before they finally sat us, but at two separate tables. I understand they were trying to be accommodating, but separate tables offered no way of communicating with the other table.
After much discussion, the manager came over and apologized, offering nothing other than his words. Some of the people in our group were a little abrupt towards him, as well as the waiter, but the waiter turned out to be just as rude himself. He offered no consistency between the tables, and rushed us through explanations of everything, but did not rush the food. It was a shame, because the manager claimed this was his best server, who’s name was Al.
At one point during the dinner, Al reached to turn the table on, and misjudged the location and ended up putting his hand right into one of my girlfriends laps. Then, to top it off, he had to crawl under the table to plug it in. So uncomfortable!
Two and a half hours later, part of the party, including myself, ended up leaving for the night. Food was mediocre, service was horrible, and the way the reservation was handled was unprofessional.
The two stars was for the fact that they did offer a gift certificate for $ 150 for the next time we come back. But honestly, why wouldn’t they have just taken it off the bill at that point. I would be more apt to come back if they had.