Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - 70
FLAVORS
SWISS SAUSAGE, FRIED POTATOES
History on Plates:
The Hütte Restaurant
A restaurant owner's mission to honor her ethnic heritage continues,
now for more than half a century.
Text by FRED & JILL SAUCEMAN | Photos COURTESY THE HÜTTE RESTAURANT
" D
70 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
reams. You've got to have dreams. And
you've got to go after them. You can't just
dream them. "
The dream of Eleanor Fahrner Mailloux
was to create The Hütte Restaurant in Helvetia,
West Virginia. Eleanor died in 2011 as she
neared 94. But as her granddaughter Clara
Lehmann says, " She lives in the walls
and in the people at the restaurant. "
Clara and her husband Jonathan
Lacocque tell her grandmother's life
story in their documentary film " Born
in a Ballroom, " finished in 2019. Eleanor's
family members all agree that
she led a charmed and a charming
life. Soon after Eleanor's mother went
into labor at their home in Virginia in
1917, the house caught fire. Eleanor's
mother got out of bed and walked to
the plantation house where Eleanor
was, indeed, born in the ballroom.
" And I have never stopped dancing since, " she says
in the documentary. Eleanor danced and sang and yodeled
into the hearts of the citizens of tiny Helvetia, a
community settled in 1869 by Swiss immigrants. Almost
100 years later, after a career in the Red Cross, Eleanor
opened The Hütte, and it remains today the soul and
centerpiece of the community.
The fresh flowers that grace each table at The Hütte,
the collection of black-iron skillets purchased over the
years at estate sales and the meticulously waxed floors
are all testament to the enduring lessons and influence
of Eleanor, who insisted on being called " Mütter, " to
honor her father's family heritage
and her adopted hometown's reason
for being.
" She went whole hog about everything, "
recalls Eleanor's daughter
Heidi Mailloux Arnett, who runs
the restaurant. " She loved the riches
of life-food and wine and nature, "
adds Clara.
Although the population of Helvetia
has remained below 100 people
for years, Eleanor felt it was the center
of the universe. " Thank God, it's not
easy to get here. It's just wonderful, "
she says.
Some 85 people live there today, and they celebrate
their life together often, bringing home-baked cakes to
the annual community ramp dinner in the spring and
roasting a whole pig in a pit in the fall.
The aroma of frying potatoes is ever-present
in The Hütte's kitchen as cooks prepare
order after order of rösti . . .
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - Cover1
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - Cover2
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - 3
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - 4
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Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - Cover3
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2022 - Cover4
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