Tamara Palmer lives, loves and writes about food (especially chocolate)

Dark Days
by Tamara Palmer

Even though Hershey’s snapped up Bay Area chocolate companies Joseph Schmidt and Scharffen Berger a couple of years ago, which might intuitively signify death for indies, the climate for independent chocolatiers has enjoyed new life and success in that time. Local cable/online channel TasteTv presents the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon, two days of chocolate celebration, featuring the eminently edible jewels of nearby artisans such as Saratoga Chocolates, Coco Delice (Oakland), Charles Chocolates (Emeryville) and the Xocolate Bar (San Rafael). Out-of-towners of note include Theo, an organic, fair-trade company from Seattle that specializes in high-cacao content dark chocolate bars (and, like Scharffen Berger, creates its products from bean to bar) and Lillie Belle arms of Jacksonville, Oregon (which grows its own organic berries for its chocolates and invents bold, addictive flavors like cayenne caramels and blue cheese truffles). Also worth tracking down is L’Artisan du Chocolat, a confectioner of great visual beauty and flavor surprises (from matcha to kalamata) created by a former mayor of a town near Paris and a daughter of a one-time Korean prime minister. But really, there’s no Hershey-type crap happening here. Only tantalizing bites await.

(Originally published by SF Weekly on July 14, 2007.)