This story was originally published March 12, 2004
Natural-born storytellers are the ones who can tell the same tales over and over again. The details of the story, its embellishments and cadences, become a kind of event. When the teller cranks into gear, an audience is sure to assemble.
Groups always gather around Dante Stephensen, the silver-tongued and -bearded owner of Dante’s Down the Hatch -- Atlanta’s unique gathering spot for fondue, jazz and crocodiles. For 34 years he has entertained Atlanta (previously in Underground and now exclusively in Buckhead) with his unique cocktail of scaly reptiles and molten cheese in a setting that looks like a back-lot set for “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Despite high prices, the restaurant attracts a mix of old-time Atlantans, prom-goers and families with kids who are all too eager to abandon their tables to gape at the crocs underfoot.
Dante Stephensen, founder of iconic Atlanta nightspot Dante’s Down the Hatch, dies
We belong in the latter category: people with kids. So do our friends. And for years now we’ve been promising our progeny that we’d take them one day for the house special chocolate fondue.
It isn’t easy. The restaurant only makes one chocolate fondue per day and only on certain days. Two days’ notice is required, and the party must have between six and 12 people. It costs $19.50 a head.
Why? According to the menu, the “Swiss honey-base chocolate is hand folded for eight hours” and served with fruit “hand-picked at the market.”
Planning far in advance, we got our slot, gathered our kids and piled into a huge booth.
Stephensen loves to tell the story of the fondue. How he was turned on to the Swiss chocolate --- “the single malt scotch of chocolate” --- by Heinz Schwab, the late chef at Hedgerose Heights Inn. How one night he was warming it for guests who showed up two hours late and had to keep folding it over the heat and, lo and behold, the flavor improved drastically. How the flavor of the chocolate develops and deepens on a “flavor curve” that levels off at eight hours. How the chocolate fondue is a “loss leader” since it requires keeping a cook eight full hours at the stove and “really disrupts the kitchen.”
As we settled in our booth, our waiter told us that just the day before a cook had gone to the DeKalb Farmers Market to hand-pick all the fruit for our fondue and, look, here it comes.
Wow. It’s a lot of fruit. So much fruit on that silver platter than I’m not sure that John the Baptist’s head isn’t immersed in there somewhere. Nothing too exotic -- strawberries, pineapple, banana, cantaloupe (cantaloupe?), honeydew, a few kiwi slices and some marshmallows that would go fast once the chocolate arrived.
The fondue comes, poured from a pitcher, and it’s good. A little sweeter and less bitter than I like chocolate, but a big hit with the kids. There’s a detectable trace of nougat in the flavor and some tiny almond bits floating in the bottom of the fondue pot. After about 20 minutes we tire of it and start chasing our kids, who are eager to climb up to the bridge of the boat in the center of the room and look for crocodiles.
Stephensen soon has us gathered in a circle, and our kids stop yammering, thanks to the magnetism of his presence. He starts telling us all about the natural life cycle of the crocs, aided by a set of laminated pictures that his staff knows to supply at just the right time in the story. The bill for our party of 10 (with drinks and a few pre-chocolate bowls of soup) climbs over $300.
Something about the nougat and square-cut almond bits in the fondue reminds me of a chocolate I know. I call up Stephensen and ask what brand it is.
“I can’t tell you,” he avers. “I’m getting an item that isn’t made available to the public.” Then he adds, “What did you think of it.”
“I liked it,” I say. “It tastes just like Toblerone.”
“You’re close,” he admits. “It’s in the same family, but it’s not a Tobler brand.”
Hmm. Decent chocolate fondue for 10: $300. The story that goes along with it: priceless.
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