Dean and Deluca

Dean and Deluca is a chain gourmet grocery store/coffee shop that claims to have the most variety of chocolate bars in New York City. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was their produce- their vegetables looked awfully fresh. Everything there looked colorful, interesting, and I was tempted to start grocery shopping. Anyway, I got back on track and found the chocolate section.

Immediately I was taken back by their temperature controlled chocolate display. They had marzapan animals, handbag shaped chocolates, various truffle types, and chocolate squares with very tempting flavors such as vinegar, green tea, and rose tea. It was delightful on my eyes and I felt my mouth starting to salivate. I had to pull myself away from the display and find the chocolate bar section. My aim was to focus only on the chocolate itself, and not the creative molds and flavorings that chocolate is often presented with. I took a few steps around the corner and stood myself in front of the chocolate shelf.

The selection was not nearly as good as I had hoped. Maybe I had high expectations, but they were missing some very important brands including the American brand Dagoba. The only American chocolate company I recognized was Ghiradelli, which in my opinion makes pretty awful chocolate. Anyway, they had about a dozen different brands and I picked up the following:

Michel Cluizel-Plantation "Conceptcion" Venezuela
El Rey-Gran Saman-Dark Chocolate
Galler-Chocolate Noir 85
Scharffen Berger-Bittersweet-Pure Dark Chocolate
Green & Black's-Dark 70%

I felt a bit lost looking at all the different labels. Almost all of the brands they carried were imported and I was wishing that I knew how to read French. Nevertheless, I managed to weed out all the "non chocolate" chocolate bars, and proceeded to the checkout stand.

At this point I'll say a few words on what I do not consider chocolate. Chocolate is the general term that people use to describe anything that remotely smells or tastes like actual chocolate (a.k.a. cacao paste, cocoa beans, cocoa liquor, etc.). This is what contributes to the rich yummy smell that we all know. For example, we call candy like Snickers, Hersheys kisses, and Twix bars chocolate. This is common, but flawed. The FDA requires only 10% cacao content in order to call it chocolate. That's an extremely small percentage of pure chocolate. And as pure chocolate is more expensive than additives like sugar and cocoa butter, companies like Hersheys and M&Ms use the minimal amount required. This means that when you eat a Hersheys "chocolate" bar, you're eating mostly sugar and very little chocolate. Therefore, it doesn't make much sense for me to call something like that chocolate. It's mosty sugar, so it' should be called candy. If I can change the FDA regulation, I would say that it should at least have a majority, or 50% chocolate content. I personally prefer chocolate with at least 70% cacao content, and only eat candy like Hersheys Special Dark when I'm desperate enough and can't find real chocolate. Anyway, the chocolate label issue is a result of commercial interests of large corporate companies, and they probably know better than anyone that they're not *chocolate* companies, but *candy* companies.

(Sidetrack: Have you ever noticed those foil wrapped holiday "chocolate" that don't really taste like chocolate? You know, the kinds that come in Santa Claus or Valentines pink foil with crispy rice or peanut butter? They're not labeled as chocolate and probably have something like 1% cacao content. Also, in case you're curious, the European standard is 1%. This is a result of the chocolate war that happened in the 1990's. Europe was trying to establish food standards and first on consideration was to require at least 50% cacao content to call it chocolate. The countries that made low percentage chocolate (esp. milk chocolate) opposed the idea, and won. The only catch was that they had to print the percentage level on the packaging. Consequently, chocolate companies that make real chocolate print their percentages large and bold in the front while low percentage and more commercial based companies try to hide them small in the back).

Overall, Dean and Deluca failed to live up to my expectation of the store with the highest selection of chocolate bars in NYC. I guess they have enough variety to make such a claim, but I didn't see a striking difference between them and Whole Foods. I think they should either give up the their claim to avoid such a hype, or consider widening their selection.

As far as the service goes, the cashiers I encountered were friendly and nice, and I was not surprised that they did not know the cacao percentage of the Dean and Deluca's own brand of dark chocolate.