San Francisco’s 1st Gift to the World: Chocolate
photo credit See’s Candies
From November 26th to December 2nd, Metroblogging sites around the globe will be unveiling seven gifts their cities can share with the world - one gift a day for seven days. To keep track, browse the numerous Metblogs, or check in periodically for updates here.
Now you may say France has better chocolate, or, heck, South America- the only thing I say in my defense is that it’s what I thought of when I first read the guidelines, as something I’d write about. We have a lot of chocolatiers of high quality.
XOX Truffles- In North Beach, and I just learned they got voted one of the top chocolatiers in the US. Kathryn wrote about them in “Truffles for the Writer’s Soul“.
Ghirardelli- Old SF company, but just started a line of very nice gourmet chocolates
Scharffen-Berger - always a hit, as a high cocoa percentage chocolate, despite being bought recently by a corporation they are still going strong.
Charles’ Chocolates - beautiful truffles and other chocolates- their new line is very nice.
Guittard - Longtime SF family-run, top notch French chocolatier, they have some of the best chocolate I’ve ever tasted
Bittersweet- vendor of all things nummy in chocolate land
Joseph Schmidt - fine confectioners, they’re in the Castro/Mission area and truly superb. Very innovative, sometimes funny, candies.
And our good old-fashioned gift boxes of… SEE’S!!!
There are so much more that I don’t know about… Richart, new store just opened up, More lists of good chocolatiers in SF…. Majid has a nice list here for chocoholics in the city, an About.com article on SF Chocolates too.
Is it our historically close location to South America, where chocolate was enjoyed by the pre-Columbian civilizations, or is it our thirst for the best of food, and our willingness to pay a lot for it? Perhaps it’s the beautiful landscape and sportiness of our population that lets us enjoy guilt-free the amazing amounts of good chocolate available? Maybe it’s because we don’t have a huge, dominant chocolate factory crowding out all of the Mom & Pop’s, like Nestle or Cadbury’s? Britain has great chocolate, so does France, but here in SF we just end up having a lot of small, successful chocolate businesses, fairs, tons of restaurants that make beautiful chocolate desserts- and I guess the visitors enjoy having nice top notch chocolate in their mousse.
So yes, we are big chocolate fans. I’m thankful that we have all of these beautiful chocolate makers and confectioners, and I’m hoping the world finds our gift valuable. I know I’m never disappointed when I get chocolate as a gift! Enjoy, world!
Um, you forgot Recchiuti.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of French chocolate, although the Valrhona stuff is okay. The Belgians, their next-door neighbors whom the French often deride, happen to be superb chocolatiers. I’ve been enjoying Cafe Tasse and Dolfin bars recently.
Also, the single origin Santander chocolate from Colombia is kinda interesting.
Dagoba’s pretty good and we’re lucky that chocolate is getting better these days.
oh thanks for the tip- recchiuti looks great. Had Dagoba the other day, and thought it was great. It’s based in Ashland, OR. Does anyone know what happened to Alfred Schilling chocolates?
poco dolce!!!! local local local, and yummy yummy yummy! GREY SALT TOPPED CHOCOLATES!
need I say more??
Anna,
FYI, Recchiuti has a retail store in the Ferry Building. Personally, I think Recchiuti blows doors on Scharffen Berger.
thanks tinman - i’ll check out Recchiuti! Nancy- evil woman telling me about poco dolce! I love the salt-chocolate combination; it’s like really good mole! Favorite mole so far is this place in Palo Alto on Califronia St.- something like palo alto sol, but also (strangely) La Rondalla has good mole,if I can avoid the margaritas and taste the food :)
My absolute favorite chocolate is Richard Donnelly Chocolates. He’s located in Santa Cruz (of all places). True artisan chocolate. And if the international awards he’s racked up don’t impress you, the taste sure will. Unless you’re obsessed with chocolate, most people have never heard of him… but we are so incredibly lucky to live within driving distance of his shop. Seriously.
You also forgot about Moonstruck, a great new chocolate cafe on Chestnut and Steiner. This place has great truffles, and a phenomenal coffee selection!
I know that I am late to chime in here, but I have to echo tinman and say that Recchiuti is about a billion times better than Scharffen-Berger. Yummy….I might need to run down to the Ferry Building right now and get some now that I work down the street!