michel cluizel

in between pipa & lucy’s latin kitchen & ABC home furnishings – entrances on 18th st, 19th st and bway.

in the oddest little spot — contiguous (no sealed walls) with a home furnishing store, a tapas restaurant, a pan-latin restaurant, and le pain quotidien — is a very upscale parisian chocolatier. after reading about it in the NYTimes, S & i had been hankering after some of their chocolates for a while. with the sad, inevitable end of our new york lives approaching, we buckled down and splurged on a guided chocolate tasting.

led by a comically adorable middle-aged lawyer-cum-chocolatier, we indulged in a lesson on the different cocoa beans (S has notes; i remember little beyond the mere words forestero & criollo), single-plantation origin, and mostly on sensitizing our palates to the differences in the chocolates. and oh, are there differences. i sadly, can no longer remember the name of my favorite, but i think it had the yellow stripe on it. i remember it was a single-plantation dark with a slightly mango-like, fruity flavor. also incredible was the roasted praline truffle and the choctini that was absolutely worth the price — i got the vodka variant mixed with their signature cocoa blend (but again, forget the name at this point). the tasting is $55 for 2 people with about 50% discount on the drinks. it’s a little pricey, a little hoaky at times, but for me, with the friends i was with, it was definitely a worthwhile and memorable experience.

however, it would also be more economical and equally as worthwhile to go for a drink and some chocolates. so either way, i recommend this chocolate shop.