Chi Chocolat, an upscale chocolate paradise in Little Italy, was recently purchased by Jesse and Tess Brown. The caf_ caters to chocolate connoisseurs with creations far more creative than the clich_ combinations found at candy franchises. All of the treats, from the chili-tangerine chocolate cones to the coffee-flavored miniature mugs, look as though they were zapped by Willy Wonka_s shrinking machine and are handmade in the store. Chi Chocolat also hosts chocolate fondue parties and tasting sessions in which groups of four to six people sample candy containing different percentages of cocoa. - Jennifer Olinger, 944 Magazine, Unique Boutiques, Nov. 2005
Jesse Brown from Chi Chocolat joined us to talk about the chocolate gifts you can give your sweetheart this Valentine's Day. He talked about everything from Bonbons to creamy hot chocolate. For more information on the different chocolate treats go to www.chichocolat.com
Imaginative Boutique Chocolatier"...The chocolate itself is among the best you can find, foregoing the cheaper beans used most often in commercial chocolate for fine aromatic varieties. Chi also uses no artificial products or preservatives; the chocolates are meant to be eaten young." - Drew Clayton, 2007
I walked into Chi Chocolat on a Tuesday afternoon, and found Chocolatier Jesse Brown leaning over a tray of minutes-old chocolates, carefully brushing their tops to add texture. Brown is crafting chocolates entirely by hand, in a batch of no more than 50 pieces. "There's no shortcuts," he said, smiling. "We want to provide people with something unforgettable, an unforgettable experience." Brown said that he wants to show people the "mystique of chocolate." "It has a very grand history," he said. Owner and Chocolatier Tess Brown has been at it for a year-and-a-half, creating unique chocolate for local customers who are looking for quality, not quantity. "Most chocolate manufacturers can't produce a high-quality product," said Jesse. "Chocolate's not cheap. Then they have to use preservatives for the high volume." Unlike insipid store-bought chocolates, which I now realize have all the flavor of a hockey puck, fresh chocolates are meant to be consumed relatively soon after they are made. Chi Chocolat can boast about 50 different flavors of hand-made chocolates, with classics like coconut, classic dark and pistachio. However, expect to find numerous culinary originals in the chocolate flights, like white chocolate with rosewater or sweet thyme (strawberry lemon-thyme). Jesse said that when his family travels, they get ideas for food from encountering different cultures. "Food is culture," he told me. "When you travel, you see people eating together, sitting down, chit-chatting and enjoying food." Jesse handed me a dark chocolate with tiny dots of pink. Raspberry with peppercorn, he tells me. I take a bite. The flavor is complex, rich and perfect. Words fail me. "We want to educate people, too," Jesse said. "It's like learning about wine, when people don't know any better they'll drink anything." Tess and Jesse will stop at nothing to ruin all other chocolate for you. The in-store tasting is a good way to experience the incredible diversity of hand-made artisan chocolate. For the tasting, choose between seven single-origin, dark chocolate disks, or three milk chocolate and four dark chocolate disks made with various amounts of cacao. Then, a rolled truffle and a piece of spicy chocolate are yours for the sampling. For Valentine's Day, Chi Chocolat makes a heart-shaped box and lid out of chocolate with plenty of room inside for one of Tess' chocolate flights. The chocolate flights are similar to wine flights in that they are grouped by region or flavor. The liquored ganaches flight includes Viking (black rum currant), Caramelli (Grand Marnier), Framboise, Mimosa (champagne) and Chataigne (rum chestnut). Custom orders are also available for corporate events, weddings or any gathering of discriminating tastes. Gift-givers can peruse a large selection of flight boxes and custom packaging. A personal gift design called the book box contains two chocolate flights nestled side-by-side in a hand-assembled package resembling a bound book. As the tempering machine turned Jesse's chocolate, maintaining its temperature to a tenth of a degree, I got to sample where it came from. He handed me a tiny piece of unsweetened chocolate. "You probably won't be able to eat the whole thing," he said. He was right, it was bitter and powerful, but it was still chocolate, and the texture was still pretty much the same. Chocolate is heavily modified by human hands, and does not occur in nature as we usually encounter it. The cacao tree produces cocoa beans in its yellow pods, which are ground up to make cocoa powder. Growth and harvesting of cocoa beans can be difficult, as the trees only flourish within 10 degrees north or south of the equator. The majority of the world's cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast, which produced 1.33 million tons of cocoa in 2004, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Association. Most chocolates are made from Forastero beans, which are much more widely available than their more delicate counterparts, the Criollo or Trinitario beans. Chi Chocolat shies away from Forasteros, as well as preservatives and artificial additives. "It's a labor of love," Jesse said. "We don't need the holidays to make us rich. We just love food." - Jared Cohen, Coronade Eagle, February 22, 2007
Little Italy's upscale chocolatier is everything exquisite... From richly flavored bonbons to decadently creamy hot chocolate, Chi Chocolat's offerings ooze yummy." - Jennifer Croshaw, SignOnSanDiego.com/San Diego Union Tribune
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