Courmayeur Mont Blanc is a popular mountain ski resort but did you know its popularity is growing in summer too?
Courmayeur Mont Blanc, situated in the Italian Alps, is a traditional yet sophisticated resort full of history and charm surrounded by spectacular scenery.
Crowned the sixth best European ski resort in the 2022 Conde Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards, the centre of the village is car-free offering shopping, fine restaurants and bars, a fantastic choice of accommodation for all budgets and a fabulous après-ski scene.
As foodies and travel lovers Foodepedia went to experience an immersive cooking experience inspired by the Courmayeur produce.
Welcomed with perfectly chilled sparkling Glacier from Cave Mont Blanc, one of Europe’s highest wine cellars our journey begins.
Shimmering gold and perfectly crisp it’s made using traditional method from Prié grapes, it pairs magically with slices of Fontina PDO cheese.
Fontina Cheese Consortium is one of Italy’s most historic and protected cheeses, produced exclusively in the Aosta Valley using milk from Valdostana cows. It’s aged in natural mountain caves.
It’s soft with just a bit of firmness on the bite and a rich, buttery flavour. It also has exceptional melting qualities as we learn when it gets to our main.
It’s so iconic to the region that each March it’s celebrated with a special event where tastings, gourmet experiences, and meetings with local chefs and producers take place.
This is a hands on cooking experience and we’re in excellent hands, guided by the Executive Chef Giuseppe Buondonno of the Grand Hotel Courmayeur Mont Blanc we begin to assemble our pasta machines to roll out the dough for cappellaccio.
The secret to the perfect pasta dough is to go slow, one grade on the machine at the time before reaching the thinnest setting. Once there if you can just slightly see your palm through it, this is the thickness you want.
To seal the pasta we use a pasta stamp, a must in any kitchen if you work the job done hassle free.
Moving onto assembling our starter, it’s beef carpaccio with pickled porcini, parsley mayo, topped with caviar and hazelnuts. Folding the paper thin beef slices we’re trying to recreate Mont Blanc scenery.
At Grand Hotel Courmayeur Mont Blanc the carpaccio is topped with hazelnut sorbet, which as the chef tells us always gets the guests talking but for our ease we are doing a simplified version otherwise we’ll be in the kitchen for a while churning that sorbet.
As we gather around the tables to sample our hard work we move onto the Cave Mont Blanc de Morgex et La Salle. With Pale lemon color it comes with very light notes of lemon.
And some salt and grapefruit on the palate. With high acidity and short finish it compliments pickled porcini and rounds up the umami rich carpaccio just right.
We continue sipping on the wine while enjoying our pasta slathered with fontina fondue and saffron sauce, while might not be the most eye appealing on the eye it’s certainly very favoured on the tongue.
With a fountain of flavours one might argue it’s a red wine dish but quite the opposite, a light white does a better job, without forcing its presence.
Final dish to sample is deconstructed mille-feuille with chestnut cream, chocolate ganache and and candied chestnuts.
Luckily we’re not participating in this one, with the great wine we drank by now the dessert would be more of a disorganised mess than a well put together deconstruction.
I’ve never been a fan of chestnuts so I’m not particularly keen on this one, just a personal preference really but the wine it’s paired with is truly an eye opener.
Neither I’m usually a dessert wine person but perhaps because I wasn’t drinking the right ones, meet Chaudelune.
We enjoy it lightly chilled. In a glass it’s a beautiful copper colour with delicate, bittersweet toffee apple flavours and a refreshing bitter finish. Maybe that’s why I like it, it’s aromatic but doesn’t have that overpowering dessert wine feel to it.
The sweetness is balanced by a flash of acidity which keeps the wine fresh and light on the palate. We leave happy and merry with a little slice of happiness by Fontina Cheese Consortium.
And, last but certainly not least, we tried our hand at cooking — and drinking — at the lovely Enrica Rocca Cooking School, a family-run kitchen dedicated to sharing authentic Italian recipes and a passion for food with every guest.
Enrica Rocca Cooking School London, 227 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 6HG