The restaurant scene in ski-resort/scenic French Alpine village Les Contamines is not diverse. In fact, Le Husky is pretty much the only proper restaurant in the village.
This being so, it's extremely fortunate that it's really rather good.
I am far from an expert in the restaurants of the Haut Savoie region, and am sure this place is just a common-or-garden brasserie, marked up for the hordes of alpine tourists, but when a dish of potato dauphinoise (sliced spuds oven baked with cream and cheese) becomes the main topic of conversation for the evening and has the entire party near to weeping tears of joy, they've got to be doing something very right. Particularly when said dish is just the accompaniment to the main course, which was excellent, but slightly overshadowed by its potato-ey wingman.
My girlfriend had a whole melted cheese, with various pieces of bread, charcuterie and gherkins to dip, which came on a special plate/bowl incorporating a tealight to keep said cheese liquid. This was also met with much enthusiasm.
Starters were also good - salads were massive and varied, including delicious celeriac remoulade; I was assured that the prawn cocktailly thing the girlfriend had was good, and the snails were shelled (whoo hoo!) and in a sizzling cast-iron platter running over with garlic butter. Desserts were also excellent. Tasty icecreams and tarte-tatins.
The delightful proprietress rocked up after the meal with a couple of bottles of Eau-de-vie to provide a complimentary digestif - which went down very well.
You will need a big appetite to eat here - but if you've been skiing all day (or, as we had been, hiking 12 miles with more than 2000m ascent) - this will not be a problem, and you'll probably wake up with a hangover, but safe in the knowledge that your ailing muscles will be well on the way to being repaired by copious amounts of cheese. read more
