The Little Dipper-Fondue on Main

So, I hope everyone had a great Mothers Day.  I know it doesn't surprise any of my readers, but I wanted to go out for a nice lunch with my boys for my birthday.  So, we headed out to a brand new restaurant in Brightleaf Square to celebrate the big day.

What it is: The Little Dipper opened up just a few weeks ago.  It is a fondue restaurant with a few new twists.  I always love fondue, and the boys have enjoyed it in the past, so we headed on over.  While this place would also be fabulous for a date night where you really could enjoy every course, we couldn't quite enjoy it in that style with the kiddos.  Since they don't eat much meat beyond nuggets, bacon, and hot dogs, we just stuck with the cheese and chocolate courses.  This was perfect, and Little Dipper offers a chicken and shrimp add-on to your cheese fondue so you can make it into a little more of a meal.  What a great idea!

One of the great parts of Little Dipper was that they offered some local options.  The cheese we selected was smoked farmers cheese from Chapel Hill Creamery and the bread was from Ninth Street Bakery.  Boy, was it good.  Plus, since there are so many little items to dip in the cheese, the boys found plenty of things that they liked and had a great time.  Of course, the chocolate was everyone's favorite.  We polished off all of the dippers quickly and the boys loved dipping the fruit and marshmallows in the chocolate.  Everything was delicious!

What we liked:  We loved their use of local ingredients.  Plus, we liked how you could add the chicken and shrimp to the cheese course if you weren't interested in the meat course.  Fondue is a fun type of meal for the kiddos and we all really enjoyed it.

**Oh, and a little hidden treasure.  The art along one of the walls on your way to the exit is actually filled with sand art you can flip around and watch the sand move.  Our waitress clued us in to this and the kids were entranced.

What we would change:  Our biggest negatives were the menu and the price.  As with other fondue places, it was pricey, but I think there were things we could have done to minimize the cost.  In addition, the menu was very confusing, so we wanted to make sure to give you a few tips for navigating the menu and cost with kids.

First, ask for the a la carte menu.  This way, you can pick to just get a few courses instead of the whole meal.  As I said, we picked the cheese and chocolate courses.  Also, make sure you see the local ingredients insert if you want to try one of their local options.  We got the four person size on both the cheese and chocolate, but we took leftover chocolate home, so we might have been able to get away with the two person size.  So, it's a confusing menu, but it is definitely worth figuring out.

Website and other important information:  

Website: http://www.littledipperfondue.com/durham

Address: 905 West Main St, Durham (In Brightleaf Square tucked away inside a building)

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday: Open at 5, closed Monday

Photos: 

(our cheese course)

(Mmmmm...chocolate)