We believe chocolate, that Valentine’s Day staple, has come to symbolize love because good chocolate is much like love: It makes your knees weak, you can’t stop thinking about it and you want more . . . constantly.
Chocolate supersedes all. No matter what sort of diet we’re on or what we’re doing, we always make room for chocolate. Last Valentine’s Day, more than $1 billion was spent on chocolate. And if you’re doing your part as an American, you’re eating about 11 pounds of chocolate per annum, adding up to more than 3 billion total pounds consumed per year. Chocolate makes us feel good, and happy. Sure, in excess it can also make us fat, but who has time to fret about that stuff?
In the great and grand world of chocolate, we wanted to sample some of Chicago’s flavors and destinations. Even without Fannie May, there are all sorts of chocolate–turtles, martinis, hot chocolate–and chocolate shops that make our hearts flutter.
A taste of our favorites There are a host of local chocolate companies doing their thing with style. We’ve selected the best from some top area spots.
Nonpareils
Graham’s Fine Chocolates and Ice Cream, 302 S. 3rd St., Geneva; 630-232-6655
We could have chosen the Skalies (Swedish for “turtles”), with their salty pecan base. But the nonpareils ($19.98 per pound) lure us every time we visit this candy shop, located in a historic house in that quaint shopping mecca of Geneva. The dark chocolate drops, which are studded on one side with multicolored candy seeds, have a nice chocolate bite but an ultrasmooth finish. They more than live up to their name.
— Linda Bergstrom
French creams
Old Fashioned Candies Inc., 6210 W. Cermak Rd., Berwyn; 708-788-6669
A lifetime of candymaking can be sampled in this store, which positively celebrates all things chocolate, hand-dipped chocolate at that. We almost got our name in milk chocolate initials, but the French creams ($13.95 per pound) are what the store is famous for. The best word to describe these little treats is smooth. They are delicate and elegant, with a strong chocolate flavor. We prefer the dark chocolates, but that’s just us.
— Kevin Williams
Truffles
Vosges Haut-Chocolat, 520 N. Michigan Ave., 312-644-9450; Peninsula Hotel, 108 E. Superior St., 312-335-9858
Vosges is known for its exotic truffles, and with good reason. These confections make your knees weak with a multilayered, complex chocolate blast. One sampling of the Black Pearl, described by Vosges as “ginger and wasabi infused fresh cream and premium chocolate,” was sufficient to inspire epithets, and we don’t mean “Golly.” Nine truffles will cost about $25, and be worth every. Last. Cent.
— K.W.
More Chicago favorites to fill our chocolate box
The best chocolates from some top local chocolate makers.
English toffee
Cora Lee Candies, 1844 Waukegan Rd., Glenview; 847-724-2754
This 40-year-old family-run business has changed addresses a few times, but one constant is its English toffee, the shop’s specialty. The buttery toffee, coated in creamy chocolate and rolled in ground pecans, is so good that the shop occasionally has to limit customers’ purchases to make sure everyone gets some. A pound box ($13.95) contains several slabs of the stuff; it’s up to you how big a piece to break off.
— Janet Franz
Giant Myrtles
Long Grove Confectionery, 35 W. Wacker Drive, 312-443-1440; other locations in Long Grove, Buffalo Grove, Wilmette and Glenview.
Many stores have their own variation on the turtle theme, but Long Grove’s offering is almost pornographic. It’s an immense, almost hockey puck-sized mound of milk or dark chocolate, wrapped around caramel and pecans. What makes this delicacy a delight is the quality of the ingredients: soft, buttery caramel and the smooth-as-glass chocolate. is smooth as glass. And they’re big. The only flaw, aside from not being able to finish one at a single sitting, is that Long Grove uses salted pecans. Five of the giants will cost about $13.
— Kevin Williams
Lemon creams
Gayety’s Chocolates, 3306 Ridge Rd., Lansing; 708-418-0062
Now in its ninth decade as a family business, Gayety’s excels at hand-dipped chocolate–so much so that it’s tough to pick a favorite. Pecan-caramel “Muddles,” butter toffees and almond clusters (all $18.95 per pound) are big sellers, but we gave a hearty, salivating salute to the lemon creams ($17.45 per pound). As the dark chocolate shell melts on the tongue, it forms a tantalizing contrast to the cream within–spongy yet smooth, with a sharp citrus bite and milky, sweet aftertaste. We only wish they made cakes out of this stuff. (Also in raspberry, pineapple, strawberry, orange, mint, vanilla and banana).
— Lou Carlozo
No-frills chocolate
Blommer Chocolate Store, 600 W. Kinzie St.; 312-492-1336
Even if you’ve never eaten Blommer’s chocolate, you’ve surely smelled it (if you’ve spent time in the Loop). And you can follow that sweet aroma to the outlet store housed in the factory, where chocolate (mostly sold wholesale) is made seven days a week. The store carries baking chocolate, 10-pound chocolate bars, chocolate-covered nuts and fruits, and even cocoa-shell mulch. But we like the plain-old shards of Saratoga dark chocolate ($4.04 per pound), which come, simply enough, in a zip-lock bag.
— J.F.
Terrapins
Margie’s Candies, 1960 N. Western Ave.; 773-384-1035
When you walk into Margie’s, with its great tower of red candy boxes taking up more room in the shop than its booths, you know chocolate is the priority here. And though the truffles are beautiful and the stemmed chocolate covered cherries too grand to fit in a regular candy box, Margie’s famous terrapins gave us the chocolate high we’d been searching for. Dubbed a “chocolate covered caramel/pecan fantasy,” 18 of these chewy sweets go for $12.95.
— Allison Benedikt
