Cacao et Chocolat: The Best Thing About The Marais

The sun shines in Paris and all's right with the world. I got to go to Paris last week for some meetings (oh did I count my lucky blessings) and spent all of Wednesday on my feet, in little tiny high heels, because it was too beautiful to take the stinky, crowded, pushy Metro and Paris is a city to be walked. Blisters the size of large (over-ripe and fermenting) plums? Didn't phase me. And of course my feet always take me-- past Hemingways haunts and the looming hulk of overphotographed Notre Dame-- to the winding alleys of the Marais. Oh how I love the Marais, recently highlighted in the NYT Style Travel Magazine on Sofia Coppola's shopping spree. But where I can only window shop and gape in wonder at the beautiful things in the pricey boutiques, I can indulge my heart out at Cacao et Chocolat, perhaps the best chocolate store on the planet. In fact, at this very moment I am trying my best to resist sampling another concoction from the beautiful little box that I purchased there. The box is a rich blue, and opens to the inscription:

Ici, le chocolat vous dévoile toutes ses saveurs… et vous inite à tous ses secrets.

Upon the dainty treasures is laid a tiny booklet-- with explanations of delicacies like the Teocali (ganache au chocolat noir amer) and the Quetzel (with a dash of Tequila and lemon). The store is all about celebrating the American/Aztec/Pre-Columbian tradition of chocolate making, where cocoa was deemed a sacred food.