Oddments-and-curiosities-of-life department: my wife can live happily without chocolate, yet she knows more about chocolate than most human beings, and she is a remarkable tour guide when we do our Paris chocolate tours. A few years back Alison took the photos for a handsome little book about the pastry shops and chocolate-makers of Paris, and she has lived here most of her life. So she’s had the opportunity to try almost every specimen of chocolate fashioned in Paris for the last — well, several years. She’s a child, after all.
While Alison was delighted not to receive a chocolate for Valentine’s Day, she very thoughtfully indulged my chocolate addiction by sacrificing her piggy bank at what is unquestionably Paris’s oldest and most handsome and most expensive, and also, perhaps, its finest chocolate shop: Debauve & Gallais. Click to view the interior in a 360-degree pan (on their website). It’s on the 7th-arrondissement side of the Rue des Saints-Peres, in chic Saint-Germain-des-Pres.
No one pays me to write this blog and in any case I do not do advertising copy. But I can honestly tell you that the few precious chocs contained in my ruinous Valentine’s Day chocolate heart were exquisite — exquisitely fresh, flavorful, crunchy where crunch was wanted, smooth and velvety and luscious too, not to mention admirably balanced in flavor and texture. I am not a fan of overly sweet or buttery chocolate (sorry, Belgium!). These preternaturally Parisian chocolates achieve a rare result: they please the eye and the palate, pressing all the olfactory and sensory buttons with a remarkably light touch.
Here are few snaps — of my personal chocolate heart (and those pretty dwarf irises) chez nous, plus the shopfront and several hundred thousand calories’ worth of pralines and etc… on display. Happy those who are too far away from Paris to gain ounces or pounds chez Debauve & Gallais!
For a Paris, Paris Chocolate Tour (or our other custom tours), please click here
You’re a gentleman, a scholar and a connoisseur, Mr. Liberti! Many thanks. We look forward to taking you on a chocolate tour one of these days, months, years… In the meantime, we’ll always have New York (and Paris, of course) or San Francisco, where, as you know, we’ll be on book tour in April and May. See you then!
Now that’s what I call a sinfully light and oh-so delectable way to indulge with one’s sweetheart on Valentine’s Day with “preternaturally Parisian chocolates” from Debauve & Gallais’ Rue des Saints-Peres boutique. What fond memories that brings back of paying my rent to my noble land lady in the lovely Rue des Saints-Peres** for my Rue Chomel pied a terre. A little stop into Debauve & Gallais along those lovely 7th-arrondissement streets made it worth the trip. Sounds like a lovely chocolate tour indeed!! Sign me up!
** The ceilings in her Rue des Saints-Peres apartment drawing room must have been twenty feet, but then again, one of her neighbors was none other than the then President to possibly be – Bernard Tapie, or should I say, not be be…:)