Big Apple gets taste for haute chocolate

Choco-tourists are flocking to New York to sample latest treats.

NEW YORK - New Yorkers are hot for haute chocolate, demanding rare cocoas and spending US$100 ($147) a box for bonbons flavoured with chipotle chili peppers or kalamata olives.

At Per Se, Thomas Keller's restaurant at the Time Warner Centre, where dinner for two easily surpasses US$500, the captain explains the cocoa's origin when he presents desserts.

At Pierre Marcolini, a Belgian chocolate shop on Park Ave, clusters of US$2.50 pralines are unveiled as seasonal collections, echoing the fashion industry.

"Chocolate is now what coffee was a few years ago," said Jacques Torres, a former James Beard Pastry Chef of the Year who opened the first New York factory to grind its own cocoa beans.

"People are starting to understand there's a difference between a US$5 a pound [500g] chocolate and what we do at US$40 to US$50 a pound."

Sales of gourmet dark chocolate rose 17 per cent in the US last year, according to the Virginia-based Chocolate Manufacturers Association, while retail sales of all chocolate rose 3.9 per cent to US$15.1 billion.

That outpaced a 2.3 per cent increase in all candy sales.

New York is the epicentre of the fancy chocolate boom.

Zabar's, a delicatessen on the Upper West Side, now features 16 types of dark slabs, at least three times the number of brands it carried in 2003.

"There has been an education process in the last couple of years," according to Zabar's general manager, Scott Goldshine, who said he could sell another 50 bars if he had the display space.

"Chocoholics are always looking for the next upscale thing in the world that's been hiding."

For some, that's the universe of "single varietals", with a cocoa content of 70 per cent or more made from the finest beans from Madagascar or Colombia.

Eric Case, San Francisco-based Guittard Chocolate Co's New York regional distributor, said gourmands use the vocabulary of the wine world, demanding the "fruity, floral" tones of Venezuelan dark or the "fresh, grassy notes" of the Ecuadorean.

John Edwards, a Manhattan architect, has hosted his sister and her husband from Philadelphia twice this year for weekends devoted to tasting New York's finest truffles.

They've indulged in saffron and sesame confections at Kee's Chocolates in Soho, and strawberry balsamic and pineapple pepper bites at Chocolate Bar on Eighth Ave.

"I've realised I like dark more than milk and I'm willing to spend more if I get really good chocolate," said Edwards, 30, who does his research on the internet.

He's planning an outing to Vosges in Soho to sample chocolates laced with Indian curry, Hungarian paprika and wasabi.

Edwards said he became a "choco-tourist" when he heard Jacques Torres had added a Manhattan outpost.

Torres, whose original shop is in Brooklyn, has opened a flagship store in Tribeca that lets customers watch beans in burlap sacks transformed into delicate cubes with names like "Love Potion No 9" and "Wicked Fun".

In the Hudson St front window, employees in hairnets and white coats place exquisitely coated macadamia nuts or cranberries into cellophane bags.

A box of seven champagne truffles is US$13 and a sack of dark chocolate chips goes for US$12.

Customers may also opt to pay US$480 plus shipping for a year's worth of monthly home delivery.

"I want to be New York's chocolatier," said the 45-year-old Torres, who began as a pastry apprentice at 15 in Bandol, France, and was the head dessert maker at Manhattan's Le Cirque before starting his business in 2000.

Juergen Ausborn, a former executive, and Julia Collins, last year sought to open a high-end chocolate store in New York and chose Brussels chocolatier Pierre Marcolini.

"New York is ready to take on a culture that the Europeans have known for such a very long time," Collins said.

- BLOOMBERG