Valerie Beck
Philadelphia is for many the city of brotherly love; for me, Valerie Beck, the founder of Chicago Chocolate Tours, it is also a city of chocolate love!
Here are a few standouts in a city full of standouts:
Marcie Blaine Artisanal Chocolates is located inside a beautiful and contemporary flower and home goods store. And why not! Flowers decorate the home and the mood, and chocolate decorates the palate and the mood. The chocolates are made onsite and give a twist to classics on the one hand, with flavors such as Hazelnut Praline Crunch, and the chocolates bypass classics and go straight to the wild side on the other hand, with flavors including Margarita and Coffee Whiskey. Why not indeed!
From contemporary flavors to ancient enjoyment: The drinking chocolate at Naked Chocolate is worthy of Aztec royalty.
There are a variety of flavors of drinking chocolate at Naked, and I chose the Aztec: an almost unthinkably luxuriant dark chocolate, spiked with chile peppers to give a bit of warmth. The molten drinking chocolate at Naked comes with a mound of fresh whipped cream on the side, so that the chocolate lover in question can add as much or as little as she likes. Pastries and chocolates are also made on the premises at Naked, and you can peer into the kitchen while sipping your Aztec.
For centuries, from the ancient days of chocolate 3,000 years ago until the dawn of the machine age in the 19th century, chocolate was always a drink and never a truffle, chocolate chip cookie, etc. So, following the theme of drinking chocolate, I also visited Max Brenner's new outpost in Philadelphia. Some Israeli customers told me Max Brenner's hot chocolate was the best in Israel, so I had to see for myself now that Max is in the US (New York and Philadelphia).
I tried the "suckao:" you mix chocolate chips into warm milk and suck it through a metal straw. It's a fun do-it-yourself chocolate project, and the sucking plus the cocoa equals suckao. I found I was nibbling the dark chocolate chips on their own, and the server was kind enough to ask if I wanted him to wrap those up for me. Every last crumb.
The decor at Max Brenner's whimsical cafe is a ball. Big Willy Wonka-esque vats of swirling chocolate abound, and kids would have a blast here. On a more adult note: the cafe's shop carries chocolates to go plus chocolate candles to burn while you're eating chocolate and soaking in a chocolate bubble bath. Why not!
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