The other chocolate store that I visited while in the Raleigh area was Escazu. I first heard of this store when we were lunching at Battistella's, a fun New Orleans restaurant in the center of the city where I had a delicious Louisiana Crawfish Étouffée. Battistella's is known for using locally sourced ingredients as much as possible, and Escazu was listed as a chocolate provider for one of their desserts (which I did not have a chance to taste).
After our visit to Videri, I thought it would be good to check out Escazu's store, which is on the north side of Raleigh. The store is fairly small, in a mostly residential area. The primary focus of the store is on the many chocolate confections, more so than Videri was selling. I was interested in finding a dark chocolate bar, and this one was the only one on offer. The other bars on sale have various additions, but this blog is focused on just the chocolate. Their website mentions a 65% cocoa Costa Rica single-origin bar which is out of stock. I would have liked to try it, given my reaction to the 81% Venezuela bar.
Their website is worth a visit, as they have a movie of how they make the chocolate. I did not have time to do a "tour" like I did at Videri. Their website says that tours are available, but their processing system is not out in the open as we saw at Videri.
www.escazuchocolates.com
From the label:
ReplyDelete"Founded in 2005, Escazu Chocalates is proud to be part of the growing community of small batch artisan chocolate makers, producing unique chocolate entirely from the bean, on traditional and antique equipment. This bar is made with Carenero beans from the Central Coastal region of Venezuela. We add a minimum amount of sugar so that the cherry and tobbaco flavors can be appreciated. For more information about our handcrafted chocolate making process, you can visit our website at: www.escazuchocolates.com"