chocolatier

L.A. Burdick: The Art of Chocolate Truffles

Filed under: Dining

For nearly a quarter of a century, L.A. Burdick has been bringing the best ingredients in the world together in the offerings of a single company. Small wonder the chocolatier is a nominee for a Luxist Readers' Choice award in the best truffles category.

After years spent studying the art of chocolate in France and Switzerland, Larry Burdick founded his chocolate company in a Brooklyn, New York workshop in 1987. Within a year, he was selling his bonbons to a handful of New York restaurants. In 1990, a positive review in The New York Times sparked interest in Burdick's handwork; a year later, he started his chocolate mail order business.

Gallery: More from L.A. Burdick

In 1993, Burdick and his wife, Paula, moved to Walpole, New Hampshire. They grew the business from a fledgling startup to an international chocolate mail order and retail outfit, with Larrry supplying the chocolate expertise and Paula using design smarts honed at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology to prepare the packaging.

Today, L.A. Burdick operates retail stores in Walpole, N.H., Cambridge, Mass., and New York, N.Y. For those who can't make it to one of the shops, truffles are available online in quantities ranging from the party host-friendly Favor Assortment ($5-$8) to the Connoisseur Collection ($90), which also includes chocolate-covered cigars, caramelized nuts, and chocolate-dipped fruit.

Vote for the company you believe makes the best truffles. Readers' Choice Winners will be announced on March 1st.

Tags: awards-main, best chocolate, best truffles, BestChocolate, BestTruffles, burdick chocolate, BurdickChocolate, cambidge, chocolatier, la burdick, LaBurdick, larry burdick, LarryBurdick, luxist-awards, sweets-main

Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier is a chocolate company with some really inventive stuff. Yes, they have the standards like bear claws and cherry cordials, but have you ever tried a chocolate sprinkled with flakes of sea salt? Or a porcini mushroom truffle? Or an actual sugarplum?

Bissinger's began over 350 years ago in 17th Century France, and was even enjoyed by King Louis XIV. They moved their headquarters to St. Louis, Missouri in 1927, and four years ago were joined by their Chief Chocolatier -- the friendly and talented Terry Wakefield (pictured). Wakefield was actually a nuclear engineer before he got into the chocolate business (I'm serious), but he now has 40 years of experience in the food industry. He even once ran a 6.5 acre chocolate manufacturing plant -- experience which provided him with an intimate and supremely technical knowledge about creating chocolates. He even knows how to make chocolate good for you!

"Chocolate is a great way to help people lose weight," says Wakefield. "Seriously! Dark chocolate has a high satiety factor if you don't eat it too fast."

He also knows more about the effects of dark chocolate's antioxidants than anyone I've ever heard speak on the topic: "You want antioxidants to eliminate free radicals, but you make free radicals when you eat. The break even point for dark chocolate is 50 or 60 percent."

Got that? If your dark chocolate is less than 50 percent cocoa, you aren't getting antioxidant benefits (but at least you're lessening the free radical damage -- a fine excuse to continue eating more chocolate).

All right, onto the good stuff. Pictures of the tasting (held at The Audrey Lounge in NY's W Tuscany Hotel) are below, and if you live in St. Louis or near Edina, Minnesota (a suburb of Minneapolis where, coincidentally, I happened to live for 14 years), you can visit an actual Bissinger's boutique or the Chocolate Experience Lounge in the Central West End. The rest of us will have to stick to ordering online, or finding the chocolates at retailers like Bloomingdale's.

If you haven't tried Bissinger's chocolates before, you're going to want to after you see this gallery!

Gallery: Bissinger's Chocolate Tasting

Tags: bissingers, chocolate, chocolatier, tasting

Compartes Chocolates

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Is there such a thing as a chocolate prodigy? If so he might just be Jonathan Grahm, the 23-year-old chocolatier behind the helm at Compartes, a chocolate company in Los Angeles that has been in business for over 50 years. Grahm's youthful enthusiasm has led to all sorts of delicious invention including his cheekily named Love Nuts which are hand roasted with Tahitian vanilla beans sprinkled with sea salt, layered in dark chocolate and then dusted with cocoa powder. He also has a complete line of truffles with dramatic flavors such as raspberry pink pepper, seven spice, umeboshi plum, smoked salt and lavender honey.

How did Grahm get in the chocolate business? His family just happens to own the Bonny Doon wine company and bought Compartes ten years ago. Grahm took over the business and was responsible from turning it from a more traditional candy store into a trendy gourmet chocolate shop (even getting a redesign with the help of a reality TV show). And of course, he does Bonny Doon truffles (shown above), combining their popular dessert wines such as Framboise, Vin De Glacier Muscat and Boutille Call Port Wine with dark chocolate for a great after dinner treat.

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Tags: chocolate, chocolates, chocolatier, compartes, jonathan grahm, JonathanGrahm, truffles

MarieBelle Mini Ganache Jewels

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

The best and worst parts of Valentine's Day are the chocolates. The reason that they are popular is obvious, considering the wide array of high-quality gourmet chocolates available. Unfortunately, this large selection can also lead to overindulgence, as delicious, expensive chocolates can be hard to resist. MarieBelle has a solution for the problem and has put together a Valentine's Day box of Mini Ganache Jewels. The jewels are 1/2-inch square versions of their larger chocolates, made with the same attention to detail and signature colorful artistic decorations on top. Price: $46 for a 25-piece box.

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Tags: chcolate, chocolates, chocolatier, mariebelle, new york, valentine, valentine's day

Godiva's Million-Dollar Hearts On Fire Diamonds Sweepstakes

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Jewelry

To celebrate Valentine's Day, Godiva has decided to give away a million ways to say "I love you" - by which we mean that they're giving away a $1,000,000 worth of Hearts On Fire diamond jewelry, as well as a year-long supply of Godiva chocolates. The prize is intended to be the "ultimate extravagance" as far as chocolate and diamonds go, but it will only go to one lucky winner. Two runners up will receive $50,000 worth of diamond jewelry, as well as the year's supply of chocolate. All three winners will be announced on or around Valentine's Day.

The sweepstakes was unveiled by Sienna Miller, who is one of the spokespeople for Hearts On Fire and wore some of their jewelry in addition to her Cartier at the Golden Globes. Participation codes to enter the drawing can be picked up at Godiva Boutiques and authorized Hearts On Fire retailers .

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Tags: chocolate, chocolates, chocolatier, diamond, diamonds, godiva, hearts on fire, prize, sweepstakes

Noka Chocolate Controversy

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

We mentioned Noka Chocolates once before here on Luxist and, unfortunately, it looks as though we fell victim to their crafty marketing, as have so many other publications. They sell the most expensive chocolate in the world, with prices up to $2,080 per pound, but as we have now learned, thanks to an outstanding in-depth investigation of the chocolatier by Dallas Food, price isn't everything.

Many chocolatiers use chocolates fro other sources and Noka is no exception, although they, unlike every other high-end chocolatier, seem to be willing to go to any lengths to hide the fact and protect their markup. If you want to try their the single-origin chocolates that are their claim to fame, go directly to the source and buy Bonnat Chocolate direct. Then, head over to Dallas Food's expose to find out how they discovered the world's most expensive chocolate really shouldn't be.

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Tags: chocolate, chocolates, chocolatier, dallas food, expose, noka, noka chocolate