Food & Drink
The Chocolate Show, New York
Food & Drink
It was with a spirit of rigorous investigation that we took on the 11th annual Chocolate Show in New York (the traveling exhibition is fresh from Paris and on its way to Moscow), and our thorough research led us to a few short conclusions.
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Single origin – we saw it everywhere from the Tuscan chocolate-makers Amedei to the French stalwarts Boissier – is in. As are savory flavor elements – Aleppo chili caramels from Eclat Chocolat vie with California-based Christopher Michael Chocolates’ rosemary-infused truffle for unusual-flavor dominance (our money’s on Eclat’s transcendence). As is the thorough embrace of salt - Fleur de sel-based caramels have been taking over delis from here to Brooklyn.
But the chocolate show demonstrated a final embrace of this crossover, with Berkshire Bark’s tremendous Pretzelogical bar and Charles Chocolates’ (who gets extra points for their newly unveiled edible chocolate box) salty pecan caramels each requiring further study.
The biggest hit to our minds was the San Francisco-based company Tcho, who cut a clear swath through the sometime mystery of single-origin (it takes a while to immediately recognize Madagascar) with a flavor-profile approach, offering the choice of nutty, fruity, chocolatey, and citrusy. It sounds simple, but it absolutely works, and after the exhaustion of tasting so many different bars and truffles and types, was the perfect – and perfectly packaged - close.
