Thursday, September 6, 2012

Haute Chocolaterie: La Maison du Chocolat

La Maison du Chocolat, 225, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, hit Paris in 1981, and it didn't take long to become an institution. Something like three weeks. Faces staring into the windows are studies in anticipation. The chocolates are made below the shop in what used to be a wine cellar. Owner Robert Linxe is less interested in chew than in flavor and melt. Marriages made in heaven are his forte: chocolate an coffee, chocolate and rum, chocolate and orange. An occasional flirtation with kirsch is permissible. For the more indissoluble union of chocolate with the well-defined personality of coffee, Linxe frequently has his coffee and cocoa beans ground together.

"Good chocolate won't make you sick," he said as he urged us to taste a Romeo, a Bohème, and a Rigoletto. "It won't even make you fat. Look at me, and I eat it all day long." True, he was as svelte and active as a live wire and as persuasive as a faith healer.

"Bitter chocolate is full of potassium and magnesium."

Convinced that it was so good for me, I could hardly refuse a Bacchus.

—Originally from Gourmet Magazine, 1987

A) I want to write this well

B) I want a job where I get to write like this,  about chocolate all the time

C) I miss Paris

D) Why, oh why, did Gourmet fold??

6 comments:

  1. ...should 'chocolate an coffee' be 'chocolate and coffee'?

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  2. "and or an", who cares-it's chocolate and it's good.

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  3. You write this well. I thought it was your article at first:)

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  4. I also thought it was your article at first! :)

    As my grandfather has always told me in Spanish, don't ever doubt the art that is in your heart.

    Milsters

    (http://littlepiecesoflight.blogspot.fr)

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  5. Aw. Thanks, guys! I appreciate it. But you know what I mean... can you imagine a life, writing about Parisian bistros and cacao estates and restaurants that people from all around the world flock to?? That's the dream...

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