Chocolate Shops: Claudio Corallo

I was perusing Seattle Weekly's annual Best of Seattle issue a couple weeks ago when I zeroed in on the category “Best Place to Taste Chocolate,” and found that their pick surprised me: Claudio Corallo, a store I'd never heard of. I was even more intrigued when I visited the company's website, because all of Claudio Corallo's products are 70% cacao and higher—score!—and I vowed to visit the Seattle flagship store post haste.

On the weekday afternoon when I pulled up to Claudio Corallo, I was surprised to see that the shop was full of people. It turned out that a group from a nearby business had come in for a semi-private tasting, and I'd barged in mid-presentation. The proprietor was rather occupied but also gracious, and she suggested I come back in ten minutes, by which time most of the other customers had left and I was able to try samples and ask questions.

Let's get something out of the way: This is expensive chocolate, more than $4 per ounce for a single bar. But that's not really bad news, just an indication that it's a whole different product from most of the other bars you see on grocery store shelves. Most of us don't eat at three-star restaurants frequently, but on the occasion that we do, we appreciate the effort and artistry that makes it something our Wednesday night stir-fries are not. It's this perspective from which I approach pricey, high-quality chocolate.

The company

Claudio Corallo the person is a gentleman who operates his own plantation and chocolate processing facility on the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, off the coast of West Africa. His operation is essentially dirt-to-bar, because it involves everything from farming all the way to choosing sugar and inclusions. Claudio Corallo the company imports Corallo's finished products and sells them in a selection of retail stores and online. The current Seattle flagship location opened late in '09, though online reviews indicate a previous storefront in another part of town.

The tasting experience

When I first stopped in at Claudio Corallo, I watched as the organized group ate every offered sample excitedly and, at the conclusion of the presentation, immediately began dropping $20s on the items that had impressed them the most. It's a vivid illustration of why every high-end chocolatier ought to offer plentiful samples: Sampling done right can engender goodwill, encourage informed questions, and produce repeat customers who bring friends. There's no better way to up-sell than to have customers come up with the idea themselves, and on a personal level, if I'm going to pay dearly, I want to walk out with something I absolutely love.

Claudio Corallo offers a more guided tasting than Theo Chocolate. Rather than piling pieces up for unlimited self-service, Claudio Corallo's proprietor stands behind the counter with a pair of tongs, describing the choices and doling out slivers of bars and confections. The options, slightly broader than what's listed on the website, include a 100% chocolate bar; several other high-cacao options; an 80% bar with coarse sugar for textural variation; bars with orange pieces, ginger pieces, or nibs; chocolate-enrobed coffee beans or candied ginger; loose nibs; whole roasted beans; and a couple more complicated bars that involve nuts, dried fruit, and spices combined and sprinkled on top of chocolate. Additionally, the store has partnered with a nearby restaurant to occasionally offer chocolate pastries and other desserts.

I didn't want to spend too much, and so was left to narrow down among several favorites. I put off buying the whole beans, though I loved them: A new experience for me, they were nutty-crisp and not nearly as intense as I had expected. Similarly, I enjoyed the nib bar's contrast between the nibs' texture and near-airiness and the sweetness of the chocolate that surrounded them. I finally bought a box of chocolate-covered coffee beans and the outstanding orange bar (reviews to follow), and definitely plan to stop into Claudio Corallo again.

Endangered Species Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Toffee 72%

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Bittersweet chocolate (chocolate liquor, beet sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla), hazelnut toffee (butter [cream, salt], beet sugar, roasted hazelnuts, tapioca syrup, soy lecithin)

13g sugar/43g serving (30.2& by wt.)

My favorite candies pre-sugar restriction were Sour Patch Kids and the like, super-sour chewy wads of sugar that I frequently craved and often purchased en masse from pay-by-weight mall candy stores. In the long run, though, the sugar, corn derivatives, and artificial colors and flavors were tangibly empty calories: I would scarf them mechanically until I realized I'd eaten the whole bag, and then I'd feel a bit ill. On the other hand, caramels and toffees, while not my treats of choice, actually satisfied. One or two pieces provided buttery richness and gave my teeth a workout, and I would think, “That was tasty, and I've had enough candy.” Now imagine me in my current state, deprived of creamy sweets, and you're sure to understand why I occasionally pick up Endangered Species' toffee bar. It's usually not expensive and sometimes even on sale, and it slides below my 1/3 sugar limit despite including candy as an ingredient. I appreciate that it's an option.

The inevitable downside of this bar is that it's not all that good. Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible or I'd stop buying it, but it doesn't live up to the name. The chocolate is Endangered Species' usual simple sweetness (I'm starting to wonder if using exclusively beet sugar affects the taste in some way); I keep detecting an odd cooling sensation, like a very subtle mint or menthol; and the toffee is undetectable as fragrance or flavor, its presence limited to the texture of a few small crunchy crystals. And I won't even touch on the promise of hazelnuts.

Conclusion: Endangered Species Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Toffee 72% conforms to my restrictions and is seductively named, but to my taste it's really just another mediocre Endangered Species bar.

Chocolove Extra Strong Dark Chocolate 77% Cocoa

3.2oz (90g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin

6g sugar/30g serving (20% by wt.)

Chocolove prints love poems on the inside of its chocolate bar wrappers, a wholly unnecessary but cute gimmick. The poem on today's Extra Strong 77% wrapper is from Twelfth Night, which caught my eye because I've just been watching a TV series that revolves around a Shakespeare festival and am about to attend such a festival myself. Thus, I'm giving Chocolove points for (arbitrary and subjective) topicality.

Fortunately, the bar is pretty good, too. It's a glossy dark brown of the down-the-middle brown brown sort and molded into Chocolove's usual pillow-topped shape, and it smells like dried fruit, which isn't my favorite scent on its own but often heralds a flavor I will like. In this case, it's low on the bitter/sour index and high in smooth, mild intensity, with a texture that is waxy (seemingly a personal preference of mine) and just so slightly gritty-chalky in a nice way. Nothing about it wows me, but it does have the complexity that I find necessary to any bar I'll buy more than once, and I usually find it for a reasonable $2.50-$2.75 in my local stores.

Conclusion: For general snacking, Chocolove Extra Strong Dark Chocolate 77% Cocoa is a great choice: Reasonably priced, easy to find, and with a mild medium-dark flavor profile. 

Baratti e Milano Venezuela Cacao 80% Extra Fondente

75g bar

Ingredients: Venezuela cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, natural vanilla extract

Last time I reviewed Baratti & Milano, I was impressed by the depth of chocolate flavor in the 88% bar. This time around I'm trying a gift from the same friend, Baratti & Milano's Venezuelan 80% cacao bar. Those paltry 8% and a single source couldn't make much of a difference, right?

The 80% bar comes from the same mold and has the same dull finish, though I'd wager the color is warmer and brighter than the black-brown of the 88% bar. While I no longer have that one for a side-by-side comparison, the scent here doesn't strike me as “spicy perfume heady with vanilla” so much as sweet and caramelized, like a toasted marshmallow.

I wasn't feeling like a super-dark bar today, so I was nervous to eat another of Baratti & Milano's “extra-bitter” bars, but I needn't have worried. Oh sure, it's dark and intense, but it has the sweet support staff that the 88% bar only utilized as a background note. The flavor isn't as marshmallowy as it smelled either, more nutty, with a good portion of bitterness and very little sourness. To my taste buds, this is not a fruity chocolate.

Conclusion: Baratti e Milano Venezuela Cacao 80% Extra Fondente is...well, it doesn't stand out for me, but it's tasty.

[Note: I couldn't find a good website showing this bar.]

E. Guittard Nocturne 91% Cacao

2oz (56.7g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao beans, cocoa butter, cane sugar, soy lecithin, vanilla beans

5g sugar/57g serving (8.8% by wt.)

I'd heard of E. Guittard's chocolate via the reportedly high-quality baking wafers, though I never got around to buying any. Then I was given the chance to try the Nocturne bar courtesy of my generous Pralus donor, but I didn't feel like chocolate for a while (sacrilege!), so I've been working on this review for perhaps three weeks. Here goes...

The Nocture bar is small and thick, in a uniform, relatively matte basic brown. The aroma is quite nice, with dark, browned-caramel dried fruit: raisins, cherries, maybe figs. The taste is extremely dark and somewhat bitter but doesn't leave much impression otherwise, so I don't have much more to say about it other than that this may be why it took me so long to review the bar. On the other hand, a visitor tried some and rather liked it, a reminder of how personal taste in chocolate can be!

Conclusion: E. Guittard Nocture 91% Cacao is dark and bitter but not all that interesting.

François Pralus Le 100% Criollo

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa, o. cocoa butter

I was working on another review when the mail brought me a package from a thoughtful friend: François Pralus 100% cacao bar. What was I to do with such dark chocolate? I figured I couldn't review it, because without sugar, 100% cacao is bitter and sour. I also didn't want to bake it, drowning a relatively small amount of lovingly molded French cacao in butter and flour.

I unwrapped the foil, took a little sniff, then inhaled deeply: tropical, fruity, enveloping. So I tried a crumb, and this 100% cacao bar surprised me: it's not especially sour or bitter. It does have the expected acrid bite, but what predominates is the tropical fruit, not too flowery, something like pineapple or mango. The texture is more waxy than brittle, which I appreciate. This chocolate is complex but easy to eat—if you like 100% cacao, of course—because it's free of the sort of unpleasant edges that require dulling by sugar or milk.

Okay, I still wasn't about to eat an entire bar of unadulterated cacao. I discovered the solution in a leftover cup of heavy cream, and just for the heck of it, I tried it in two different but similar preparations. First I melted the bar with a bit of sugar. For one dessert, I whipped a small amount of the chocolate and sugar with half the cream to make an easy, soft, spoonable ganache. The rest of the chocolate mixture and cream (close to equal parts) I combined, refrigerated, scooped into balls, and rolled in cocoa powder to make truffles. In such a simple recipe inferior chocolate would have stood out, but these desserts tasted rich, pure, and dark.

Conclusion: For simple desserts that showcase high-quality chocolate, medium-bodied François Pralus Le 100% Criollo will not disappoint. 

Bissinger's Naurals Chocolate Covered Pumpkin Seed Crunch

5oz (142g) bag

Ingredients: Pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, rice malt, organic cane sugar, sea salt, dark chocolate (sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, butter oil, soy lecithin, vanilla)

8g sugar/29g serving (27.6% by wt.)

Missouri-based Bissinger's makes a whole host of confections, chocolate and otherwise, which aren't the sort of thing I usually review. But I saw these dark-chocolate-covered pumpkin seed clusters when I was trolling the candy aisle at Whole Foods (as I am wont to do), and while they don't list the percent cacao content, they fall within my sugar limit because much of the weight of a serving is made up of nuts. It's kind of a cheap way to sneak in candy, but these things happen when I shop hungry.

The good news: They're pretty good! Each piece is one or two bites' worth of pumpkin seeds and a sprinkling of sesame seeds bound by a minimal sheen of sweet lacquer and enrobed by a thin layer of inoffensive, generic dark chocolate. Because the pumpkin seeds are fairly delicate and the syrup and chocolate are applied with a light hand, the whole thing ends up airy and really quite nice. I'm not big into nuts and seeds, so I had my doubts, but I'd be happy to recommend these to folks who want a sweet chocolate snack that actually tastes reasonably healthy. Good going, Bissinger's.

Conclusion: Bissinger's Naturals Chocolate Covered Pumpkin Seed Crunch is pleasantly light and not too sweet.