Along with disco balls and lava lamps, one more retro item has made a comeback: the fondue pot. And just in time to take full advantage of this nostalgic trend, the Baltimore area has a new fondue restaurant.

The original Melting Pot opened in Florida in 1975. In that more innocent time, no one would have imagined that the '90s paranoia about raw meats and seafood would delay the opening of Towson's franchise for more than six months.

The Melting Pot did finally open in February after the owners satisfied Baltimore County officials' health concerns.

More than $300,000 was spent on renovating the space vacated by the Mexican restaurant Flutie Garcia. It's a handsome, contemporary restaurant -- dark and cozy and full of little hidden-away nooks and private booths. Tile-topped tables have burners at their centers where the heavy fondue pots are kept bubbling. Customers do their own cooking. And there's no denying it: Sharing the communal chore is fun.

In spite of being almost a quarter-century old, the Melting Pot franchise is very Now in one way. These days customers seem to want entertainment as well as food when they eat out. This they get in abundance.

Over the years, the chain's menu, which started with only three choices, has gotten more and more elaborate. All of it is fondue. Cheese fondues can be a main course or an appetizer for the meat and seafood entrees.

Your waiter will prepare the classic Swiss fondue at your table with grated Gruyere and Emmentaler, lemon juice, kirsch and minced garlic. When the cheese is melted and the mixture bubbling hot, you take your long-handled fondue fork and dip chunks of bread, Granny Smith apples or cut-up vegetables in the cheese. Delicious, except that the bread is soft fluff, not the crusty French loaf that would really hold up to the cheese.

In the late '60s, if fondue wasn't cheese it was meat and vegetables cooked in bubbling oil. The Melting Pot has updated the dish for the health-conscious '90s and gives customers a choice. They can cook their food in canola oil or seasoned vegetable broth. The broth is great for vegetables and seafood, less successful for the meat, which comes out tasting like, well, boiled meat.

But with two or more people you can have both oil and vegetable broth, and then you'll be most happy. The great advantage of this style of eating is that the food is cooked exactly to your taste: the beef and chicken hot and meltingly tender when cooked in oil, the seafood moist and not overcooked.

Be prepared for more choices of fondue than you ever dreamed of -- 13 entrees, to be exact, several of them international. "Pacific Rim," for instance, has pieces of raw, boneless chicken, teriyaki sirloin, Thai peanut-marinated duck, potstickers (dumplings) and shiitake mushrooms. It comes with two Asian sauces to dip the cooked meats in. There's also an Italian version along the same lines, with pesto and marinara sauces.

This is not, by the way, as protein-heavy a meal as it sounds. Dinners come with a choice of salads and there are plenty of vegetables to cook with each entree.

And then, of course, you have to save room for one of the dessert fondues. You dip bits of fresh fruit -- pineapple, strawberries, banana -- marshmallows (no, it's not the most sophisticated eating), and chunks of poundcake and cheesecake into hot milk chocolate, or chocolate and caramel, or one of the seven other choices.

Allow plenty of time for a sociable meal; after all, you have to cook it piece by piece.

A postscript: When I mentioned health concerns above, I called them " '90s paranoia." But I don't mean to make light of potential risks. It's easy to forget and put a piece of cooked meat or seafood back on the plate that held the raw food, instead of on the "eating" plate. That's not a good idea.

THE MELTING POT

Food: ***

Service: ***

Atmosphere: ***

Where: 418-420 York Road, Towson

Hours: Open every day, for dinner only

Prices: Appetizer fondues, $6.95-$7.95; main-course fondues, $10.95-$19.95

Call: 410-821-6358

Rating system: Outstanding: ****; Good: ***; Fair or uneven: **; Poor: *

Pub Date: 03/28/99