Chocolate at the upper echelons of the chocolate-maker's art, chocolate worthy of your special occasions, your serious concentration, and an unusually large fraction of your paycheck.
How do you know this luxury chocolate when you come upon it? Is there really a difference between a Hershey bar and a frou-frou bonbon from France?
Yes there is. You will know the best of the chocolatey best in three ways:
1) THE LOOK OF THE CHOCOLATE. Great chocolate looks great: it has a shine, a lustre, an apparent freshness, a sharpness, that everyday chocolate just doesn't have. I'm not talking about the fancy decoration on chocolate candies that may indicate top-quality chocolate just as readily as it may indicate mediocre chocolate; I'm talking about the gleaming chocolate itself. Put a Chunky next to one of our glistening winners below, and see what I mean.
2) THE TASTE AND MOUTH-FEEL OF THE CHOCOLATE. To a chocolate-lover, nothing tastes better than … chocolate. With experience, the chocolate novice comes to apprehend and appreciate the pure taste of chocolate itself, a taste that gets you back to the cacao pods that yielded the chocolate, and the earth that yielded the cacao pods. There's a great deal of "chocolate" in the market that has as little as 20% cacao product in it; the real chocolatey base may be blended with fats, emulsifiers, vanilla, powdered milk, etc. The chocolate connoisseur can tell when he or she is not getting enough of the real thing. Moreover, the real thing, properly handled by a great chocolate-maker, is easy to identify by the way it feels in your mouth. Chocolate geeks say the real thing has "snap;" that is it breaks crisply and cleanly as you chew it. No shredding. No crumbling. No muddy texture. No grittiness. Imagine the difference in feel between a fresh, tart Granny Smith apple … and a mealy old baking apple, and you've got something of the idea.
3) THE TASTE AND MOUTH-FEEL OF THE OTHER COMPONENTS IN CHOCOLATE CANDIES. Most of the chocolate candies in the marketplace combine chocolate with other flavors: nuts, caramel, fruit flavors, liqueurs, coffee, cream flavors, etc. When you eat a great chocolate candy, those other flavors will be great too: fresh, immediate, real-tasting (lots of chocolate candies have flavors that taste artificial.) Furthermore, when a great chocolate candy features the juxtaposition of chocolate and a flavored filling - that filling will be magnificent in texture, as well. And, in the hands of a great chocolate maker, it will be perfectly blended with the chocolate - flavor-wise, and texture-wise - so that the chocolate itself remains the star, it's chocolateness actually piqued and emphasized by the presence of another flavor.
So … how do you find chocolate like this? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. If you're thinking that such chocolate is only a short walk or ride away - to the fancy, famous-name, chocolate "boutique" in your downtown area, or at the shopping mall - I'm afraid that you won't be tasting what I mean by "the upper echelons of the chocolate-maker's art." Most of the famous names for upscale chocolate do a fine job of elevating chocolate a few notches above candy-store chocolate … but they don't go all the way.
Now here's the good news. In a recent marathon tasting of chocolates available in the U.S., my intrepid tasters and I - after having put ourselves on the line and "analyzing" close to 700 different chocolate candies (OK, we ate'em) from 28 international chocolatiers - found seven different chocolate companies offering unbelievably great chocolate candies in the U.S., as good as anything anywhere in the world. Furthermore, we found another five companies offering superior chocolate candies, just a shade behind those of the first tier. The delicious dozen.
And, best of all - all of those candies can arrive, mail-order, at your front door tomorrow or the next day!
Here's what we found, in descending order of chocolate rapture. Please note that each entry includes symbol indicating the general price level of each company's chocolate. It's hard to discuss pricing specifically in a round-up like this, because the many different products from the same company are priced differently. But we developed some general sense of each company's pricing policy: $ means you can expect to spend under $40 per lb. for chocolate, $$ means you can expect to spend $40-$50 per lb. for chocolate, and $$$ means you can expect to spend $50 or more per lb. for chocolate.
ORTRUD MUNCH CARSTENS
HAUTE CHOCOLATURE
New York, NY
RICHART DESIGN ET CHOCOLAT
New York, NY
LA
MASON DU CHOCOLAT
New York, NY
MICHEL
CLUIZEL
Distributed in US by Chocolates.com
XOX
TRUFFLES
San Francisco, CA
This
is a newcomer on the chocolate circuit; husband-and-wife team Jean-Marc
and Casimira Gorce opened up shop in San Francisco just a few years
ago. But, old or new, you definitely need to know about them-for they
are producing unbelievably delicious, very artisanal, exceedingly idiosyncratic
chocolate truffles. And nothing else. The French-style truffles, most
of which are dusted with cocoa powder, are in very irregular shapes,
just like you want from your brilliant local artisan. They are small;
I'm tempted to say cute, or adorable. The coatings are super-thin, the
fillings are sensual and super-dark; sometimes the outside and inside
blend into one texture. I loved almost every truffle I tasted-especially
the Caramel, which rivals La Maison du Chocolate's caramel ganache;
the Earl Grey Truffle, with its true, powerful, well-harmonized taste
of bergamot; and the A l'Orange Truffle, with its very sophisticated
bitter orange taste. I was a bit put off by nail-polish kind of taste
in the Framboise Truffle; maybe I hit a bad batch. You won't find a
lot of variety in candy-making at this company-but if you're digging
for exquisite truffles in the forest of chocolate products, now you
know where to go. Good value, too.
L.A.
BURDICK
New Hampshire
RICARD CHOCOLAT
New York, NY
MICHAEL RECCHIUTI
San Francisco, CA
JACQUES TORRES
CHOCOLATE
Brooklyn, NY
PAYARD
New York, NY
THE CHOCOLATE
GARDEN
Coloma, MI
LINDA GRISHMAN
Burlington, VT
For more information on David Rosengarten and his newsletter The Rosengarten
Report please visit :
www.davidrosengarten.com
VOSGES
HAUT-CHOCOLAT
Chicago,
IL
CHRISTOPHER
NORMAN CHOCOLATES
New York, NY
FRITZ KNIPSCHILDT
Norwalk, CT
CANDINAS CHOCOLATIER
Verona, WI
NEUCHATEL CHOCOLATES
Oxford, PA
JOSEPH SCHMIDT CONFECTIONS
San Francisco, CA
EL EDEN
New York, NY
LADERACH CHOCOLATIER SUISSE
Gaithersburg, MD
NEUHAUS BELGIAN CHOCOLATE
New York, NY
DE BAS CHOCOLATIER
Fresno,
CA
TEUSCHER CHOCOLATES
OF SWITZERLAND
New York, NY
GREEN MOUNTAIN
CHOCOLATES
Waterbury, VT
KRON
Great Neck, NY
GODIVA
Find the store nearest
you
LAKE CHAMPLAIN
Burlington, VT
LEONIDAS
New York, NY
MENDOCINO CHOCOLATE COMPANY
Fort Bragg, CA