Gimme Chocolate NOW in New York!

I spent a post-splurge dinner here with a significant other where we splurged some more. In the back is where a small laptop crowd hangs out, but overall, it’s a lot of couples and groups of girls. The menu pairs particular types of wines with chocolates, which is a clever way to get you to buy more!

The window seat with pillows is the absolute best, as you can devour your chocolate and be eye candy for all of the 7th Avenue foot traffic.

Park Slope’s rival chocolate eatery has a different feel from Cocoa Bar. Roughly about the same size, the Chocolate Room feels like a busy, crowded brunch restaurant, rather than a quiet, cozy cafe, which is to say, it has all the makings of being a romantic spot, but it doesn’t quite come together.

But, it’s so good! Upon sitting down, they bring you a taste of whatever the new concoction is. Last time I went, it was chocolate sorbet, and at the risk of sounding cliched, it was to die for!

I used to cull together a lunch from various Grand Central eateries and Li-Lac figured into many of them. (This is the cuter West Village locale) A chocolate shop? Um…yeah…I have a raging sweet tooth. I’d buy the little chocolate-covered marzipan logs and have a blessed sugar high that would carry me through the next job.

That’s fancy speak for HOUSE OF CHOCOLATE in case you didn’t catch that. This place makes me feel nervous in a way only Madison Avenue ritzy stores do. I fear the chocolate in here, so much so that I can’t buy it. I can look…and ogle…but I cannot buy.

This place taunted me when I was a poor, starving teacher living around the corner. Chocolate is an art at Black Hound. Have you SEEN what’s in the their 2nd Avenue windows? I take back what I said about Madison Avenue cocoa shops—it’s all ritzy ones that make me feel not worthy! Like, of Wayne’s World on-my-knees “We’re not worthy” stature.

The big factory is in San Francisco, but whatever, New York is going to compete anyways with a little Scharffen Berger store on the Upper West Side. In terms of American-made national brands, I think Scharffen Berger is one of the best, which means you’ll pay up the wazoo for it. WORTH IT.

Lucky Jacques can be proud to own mrchocolate.com and he just opened a third branch of his chocolate shop on the Upper West Side. This Hudson Street location is the one to visit if you’re curious about the chocolate-making process, however.

Completely enclosed in glass, you can watch how it’s done! More interesting is Jacques’ back story: he was a baker as a kid, but in adulthood, on a bet, he asked a Michelin 2-star chef for a job and that began a lifelong career in upscale food.

Dumbo’s Jacques Torres is pretty tiny, but it’s got a small “factory” cranking out the divine ice cream sandwich ingredients and you can even take a tour. If the line is too long at Fulton Ferry’s ice cream shop, bite into one of Torres’ ice cream sandwiches.

Chocolate pizza? You’ve got to be kidding me. The cheesy, “too much” factor initially made a lot of folks ambivalent about this Union Square/East Village venue, but they do have some unique cocoa concoctions. The extensive menu is surprisingly normal (you can go have crepes and sandwiches), but if you’re feeling adventurous, there’s the Chocolate syringe, Churros Fondue, and the Chocolate Mess, which you can read about on their site.