Chocolate and Ice Cream in Lyon
Last thoughts on Lyon and I'll move on...
One of our favorite pasttimes while traveling is searching for homemade, local ice cream and chocolate. Part of the reason for our visit to Lyon was to sample these two treats.
Walking into Richart was like stepping into an upscale cosmetics boutique. The air was cool, there were cabinets and counters filled with chocolate behind glass, and the walls were pristine and white. I felt like I had to whisper (we were the only customers in the store for quite some time). Not the warmest, friendliest chocolate shop I've ever been to, but we went ahead and ogled anyway. We pressed our noses against the glass counters and pointed and salivated over the unique flavors and designs. The varieties of fillings for the chocolates made there are amazing, and each delicate silk-screened chocolate was almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.
Richart
Bernachon was a store I read about in David Lebovitz's Great Book of Chocolate. We made our pilgrimage there in the late morning, just in time for me to enjoy two scoops of ice cream there, chocolate and caramel. There's nothing like eating ice cream for breakfast!
The store was gleaming and brightly-lit with a similar boutique-y feeling to it, but much larger. The women working there (I only saw women behind the counter) were dressed in the same pink scoopneck dresses -- apparently the "uniform." The woman who helped us was very sweet, spoke some English, and reminded me of Julia Ormond in appearance.
The chocolates here seemed much more accessible than the Richart... not as polished or decorated, but still very beautiful to look at. While the Richart store felt more like a museum where the chocolates were on display; Bernachon felt more like an elegant boutique. The pastry case shimmered with shiny pastries, but we were here for the chocolates, and we were not disappointed. There were so many shapes and varieties of fillings and it took us almost an hour to decide which to buy to taste and which to buy as gifts. We ended up not buying *too* much -- primarily a box for us to take home to Paris to share with dinner guests.
Bernachon
Later that day, we drove to Tain l'Hermitage to visit the Valrhona store, about 45 minutes south of Lyon. The storefront was easy to find and we miraculously found parking right outside. The scene was very different inside compared to the other two chocolate destinations. It was a mob scene and reminded me of a Godiva store in the U.S., but crammed with people. There was a line of visitors waiting to have their orders taken by the two women behind the counter who wore aprons and looked like friendly aunts. Halloween decorations were up and the crowd seemed friendly, despite the jostling... and we soon discovered why. I started at one end of the long glass counter filled with chocolates and noticed a little dish filled with chocolate-covered nuts. I helped myself to one, thinking, "What a treat, a little sample. I could use a little pick-me-up." One foot away, I noticed another dish filled with little chocolate-covered somethings (cookies) and called David over. As he came over carrying Emmett, I looked further down the line and realized that the ENTIRE GLASS CASE was lined with dishes filled with chocolate samples!! Not just chocolate-covered somethings, but FILLED chocolates -- chocolates they were selling in the case. I was totally conflicted -- do I go down the line and sample one of every variety of filled chocolate and make a pig of myself, or do I just savor a couple here and there?
I ended up doing a combination of both: I picked up a few filled chocolates at the beginning and then became more selective further down the line. In addition to the bowls of filled chocolates, there were smaller bowls of chocolate chunks, chocolate squares, and other chocolate treats scattered throughout the store. I practiced my usual restraint and only sampled one little morsel of each. As I nibbled, I had to keep saying, "Sorry, Emmett, you can't have any." Poor little guy... doesn't know yet what he's missing!
Valrhona
Finally, ice cream is one of our passions, so when I read about an artisanal ice cream made in Lyon that had been around for decades, we had to seek it out. Ets Nardone is a nondescript looking little storefront. All it consists of is the freezer filled with at least 48 ice cream/sorbet flavors and tables and chairs. It took us a while to decide, but I ended up with my old favorites: chocolate, caramel, and rice. David had a scoop of cassis (black currant). Emmett sampled his first taste and made funny faces because it was so cold (despite that he kept coming back for more). We had to capture it on camera!
One of our favorite pasttimes while traveling is searching for homemade, local ice cream and chocolate. Part of the reason for our visit to Lyon was to sample these two treats.
Walking into Richart was like stepping into an upscale cosmetics boutique. The air was cool, there were cabinets and counters filled with chocolate behind glass, and the walls were pristine and white. I felt like I had to whisper (we were the only customers in the store for quite some time). Not the warmest, friendliest chocolate shop I've ever been to, but we went ahead and ogled anyway. We pressed our noses against the glass counters and pointed and salivated over the unique flavors and designs. The varieties of fillings for the chocolates made there are amazing, and each delicate silk-screened chocolate was almost too beautiful to eat. Almost. 
Richart
Bernachon was a store I read about in David Lebovitz's Great Book of Chocolate. We made our pilgrimage there in the late morning, just in time for me to enjoy two scoops of ice cream there, chocolate and caramel. There's nothing like eating ice cream for breakfast!
The store was gleaming and brightly-lit with a similar boutique-y feeling to it, but much larger. The women working there (I only saw women behind the counter) were dressed in the same pink scoopneck dresses -- apparently the "uniform." The woman who helped us was very sweet, spoke some English, and reminded me of Julia Ormond in appearance.
The chocolates here seemed much more accessible than the Richart... not as polished or decorated, but still very beautiful to look at. While the Richart store felt more like a museum where the chocolates were on display; Bernachon felt more like an elegant boutique. The pastry case shimmered with shiny pastries, but we were here for the chocolates, and we were not disappointed. There were so many shapes and varieties of fillings and it took us almost an hour to decide which to buy to taste and which to buy as gifts. We ended up not buying *too* much -- primarily a box for us to take home to Paris to share with dinner guests.
Bernachon
Later that day, we drove to Tain l'Hermitage to visit the Valrhona store, about 45 minutes south of Lyon. The storefront was easy to find and we miraculously found parking right outside. The scene was very different inside compared to the other two chocolate destinations. It was a mob scene and reminded me of a Godiva store in the U.S., but crammed with people. There was a line of visitors waiting to have their orders taken by the two women behind the counter who wore aprons and looked like friendly aunts. Halloween decorations were up and the crowd seemed friendly, despite the jostling... and we soon discovered why. I started at one end of the long glass counter filled with chocolates and noticed a little dish filled with chocolate-covered nuts. I helped myself to one, thinking, "What a treat, a little sample. I could use a little pick-me-up." One foot away, I noticed another dish filled with little chocolate-covered somethings (cookies) and called David over. As he came over carrying Emmett, I looked further down the line and realized that the ENTIRE GLASS CASE was lined with dishes filled with chocolate samples!! Not just chocolate-covered somethings, but FILLED chocolates -- chocolates they were selling in the case. I was totally conflicted -- do I go down the line and sample one of every variety of filled chocolate and make a pig of myself, or do I just savor a couple here and there?
I ended up doing a combination of both: I picked up a few filled chocolates at the beginning and then became more selective further down the line. In addition to the bowls of filled chocolates, there were smaller bowls of chocolate chunks, chocolate squares, and other chocolate treats scattered throughout the store. I practiced my usual restraint and only sampled one little morsel of each. As I nibbled, I had to keep saying, "Sorry, Emmett, you can't have any." Poor little guy... doesn't know yet what he's missing!
Valrhona
Finally, ice cream is one of our passions, so when I read about an artisanal ice cream made in Lyon that had been around for decades, we had to seek it out. Ets Nardone is a nondescript looking little storefront. All it consists of is the freezer filled with at least 48 ice cream/sorbet flavors and tables and chairs. It took us a while to decide, but I ended up with my old favorites: chocolate, caramel, and rice. David had a scoop of cassis (black currant). Emmett sampled his first taste and made funny faces because it was so cold (despite that he kept coming back for more). We had to capture it on camera!
posted by Lynna | 4:44 PM
1 Comments:
Those are *great* pictures of Emmett eating ice cream! Heh, funny face and then coming back for more, too funny.
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