Pair a chain of luxury hotels with exotic handcrafted gourmet chocolate and you’ve got a match made in chocoholic heaven. Three California hotels Shutters on the Beach, Hotel Casa Del Mar (both in Santa Monica), and Hotel Canary (in Santa Barbara) now boast signature gourmet chocolate bars tailor-made by Katrina Markoff, chocolatier of Vosges Haut-Chocolat.
“I love Shutters,” says Markoff. “It’s the most spectacular, American, chic hotel, so creating a chocolate bar to match was like a dream come true for me.” For the Shutters Sunset Bar, she incorporated the sea breeze (with artisanal salts), added a dash of California (with California hickory smoked almonds) and enrobed the whole thing in American flavor (deep milk chocolate). Her unique interpretation of the property in the form of chocolate was such a hit that the hotel group teamed up with her again to develop bars for their other two properties: Casa Del Mar and Hotel Canary.
Casa del Mar’s Casa Rica Bar captures Europe with rich, sensual flavors like Spanish-smoked paprika, smoked alder wood salt and Spanish roasted almonds, all enveloped in fine dark chocolate. As for the Canary Crunch Bar, it transports munchers to the Canary Islands with flavors of charred tropical fruit, crunchy plantain chips, and creamy milk chocolate a decadent treat representing a fusion of flavors from Spain, Africa, and Latin America.
Want the taste of California without the travel? Visit Shutters Beach Style for a boxed set ($32 plus tax) or travel the world through chocolate at Vosges chocolate. A trend this sweet is bound to catch on.
A.P.
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