Does this plastic igloo atop a car park rooftop pull off the French Alps vibe it’s aiming for?

Previous SlideNext Slide

At Raclette Igloo, there is no denying we are sitting in a plastic dome tent on a Sydney car park rooftop rather than apres-ski in the snow-covered French or Swiss Alps.

The latter, set inside 16 dome-shaped see-through tents with tables for two, six and eight guests inside, is the experience this travelling five-week spectacle on top of Broadway Shopping Centre is inspired by.

Raclette is a semi-hard cow’s milk cheese made on both sides of the Swiss and French Alps. Its name comes from the French words racier, meaning “to scrape”, and is also the name for melting cheese and pouring it over meats, pickles and vegetables.

Swiss shepherds in the 12th century are believed to be its pioneer. Sharing raclette was adopted in France in the 19th century and it remains a common and popular European winter practice today.

Transporting it to Broadway is bizarre. But its sheer audacity, rivers of melted cheese and under-the-stars locale, make it intriguing.

At night, the igloos are lit with glowing pinks and purples, hanging lights swing in the breeze and fake snow rains down at the entrance. Everyone is given a large glass mug of mulled wine (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) to sip near a giant lit-up icicle doorway, initially gated with a pair of skis.

Inside our igloo, a sense of camaraderie develops.

Beyond are three rows of igloos, each with fire pits outside, surrounded by glowing pink, blue and purple cube seats. Inside the igloos, tables are set with napkins, cutlery, plates and an already hot raclette machine. This is a hot plate with a small roof and four spaces for cheese-loaded heat-resistant spatulas to sit until their contents melt and bubble. All staff here are from France. Our server, wearing a beret and a woolly Christmas jumper, delivers wooden boards of pickles and cured meats – prosciutto, salami, Parisian ham and cured beef – and a platter of cooked jacket potatoes.

The raclette machine is explained, we plunge our cheese-loaded mini shovels inside and, within five-to-eight minutes the raclette, imported from France, is bubbling.

We might be on top of a four-level building with access to everything from the week’s groceries to underpants and a new washing machine, but eating this combination of creamy, salty, luscious fromage, mashed indelicately through soft potatoes and coils of handkerchief-like cured meat is transportive.

French-Australian Raclette Igloos founder Vincent Hernandez, who has overseen the event in Adelaide and Melbourne, says he started it three years ago because he was missing home.

“It is this wonderful, wintry, communal thing with family and friends,” he says. “I wanted to bring that here.

“Australians love European things and I wanted to create something that will connect the two countries that I love.

“Broadway was not the easiest choice in a way because transforming the car park, craning everything up there, brought massive challenges. But it’s a space that is very unique, it’s super accessible and it’s convenient. We’ve made it theatrical and fun and as authentic as possible.”

Inside our igloo, a sense of camaraderie develops. Praise is given when cheese starts to melt, eyes are widened at the size and number of the hot potatoes and everyone loses their equilibrium when we smear the raclette cheese into a maelstrom of hot, gooey vegetable and meat swirl.

We’re still going on the warm mulled wine, based on a recipe from Hernandez’s grandmother, super-sweet, fruity and fragrant with orange, cherry, cinnamon, cloves and grape juice.

The wedges of cheese and charcuterie board contents are far from mingy. Two people get 400g of cheese, for tables of six it’s 1.2 kilograms and groups of eight people get 1.6 kilograms. The charcuterie ranges from 220g to 660g and 880g respectively.

Hernandez encourages people to ask for more cheese if they would like it. The server, who is from Alsace in eastern France and says every share-flat he has lived in has had a raclette machine in the kitchen, says we can also buy glasses of French wine – white, rosé, champagne.

We repair to our fire-pit outside the igloo to melt large marshmallows over glowing logs. The burning wood smell is lovely.

As the night draws in, it is all as strange as it is enjoyable.