A taste of sweet success
2006-02-14 07:39
Brussels - Valentine's Day is high season in the city that considers itself the world's chocolate capital.
Chocolatiers who have climbed to the top of the gourmet ladder in Brussels present their delectable creations in spectacular boxes or ribboned bags as gifts for lovers, spouses and just plain chocoholics.
Pierre Marcolini, who has designer chocolate shops in Brussels, Paris, London, Tokyo and New York, claims the fervor of Valentine's Day boosts sales throughout the world.
He has been a chocolatier for only a decade, but has quickly followed in the footsteps of other famous chocolate makers - like Neuhaus, Godiva and Leonidas - who made Belgium a wellhead of peerless chocolate.
The Valentine's high season is global.
On February 14 "in Japan, it's the women who come in to buy chocolate for their men", says Marcolini. A month later - on March 14, honouring the Japanese tradition of "White Day"- it is the men who buy gifts for women.
Finger-licking good
"Chocolate is a passion ... a pleasure," said Marcolini, whose "deep conviction" from the age of 14 led him to pursue a profession in cocoa.
In 1995, he started out competing with old and established Belgian chocolate houses that dot the posh Sablon area and the narrow streets around the neo-Gothic Grand' Place in the historic city center of the Belgian capital.
All Belgian designer chocolate nowadays comes in a blaze of flavours, shapes and intensity.
You can get it brimming with to-die-for cream fillings, sugary delights, nuts or alcohol and always in beautiful packages.
Neuhaus, founded in 1857, caters to chocoholics with shops in more than 40 nations. Seventy-five year-old Godiva began as a Brussels company named for the legendary Lady Godiva. Today, a box of its "G Collection (of) ultra-premium, couture-style line of handmade chocolates" sells for as much as $125.
Marcolini's favorite? His own Pave de Tours - sugared almonds, hazelnut and puff pastry coated in either milk or dark chocolate. He says it for its simplicity and calls it his purest form of chocolate.
- AP