Slavery — NOT COOL. Enter Tony's Chocolonely's

They're big. They're delicious. They're giant bars of trampoline-worthy chocolate by a company I had never heard of until fairly recently: Tony's Chocolonely!

Where to begin. I didn't search out these bars, these bars came to me — via my sister who traveled to Amsterdam over a year ago and brought me back five large bars of various flavors (dark chocolate, milk chocolate, milk chocolate with nougat, milk chocolate with hazelnuts and milk chocolate with caramel and sea salt) purchased at a supermarket there.

Raising the Bar: Dutch-owned Tony's Chocolonely is making chocolate great again.

With their giant size, bright-colored wrappers, wacky font and avant-garde breaks, these thick slabs of high-quality chocolate take a sledgehammer to the flat, boring bars of yore and let loose some seriously fun, chocolate indulgence. And trust me, it's not difficult to eat a whole bar in one sitting.

Tony's also takes a sledgehammer to something far less digestible: slavery in the cocoa industry. Slavery, including child slavery, is directly linked to much of the chocolate that we ingest in one form or another.

To my surprise, this news has been circulating in headlines for well over 10 years. But it wasn't until I visited the Tony's Chocolonely website about a year and a half ago — because I liked their chocolate so much — that I learned about the abuse and exploitation that lies behind the foil-covered bunnies and melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hands chocolate candies that we associate with the playful side of life.


Google "slavery chocolate" and the results are astonishing. Brands that many of us grew up with —Hershey’s, Mars and Nestle — are connected to the exploitation of children and adult laborers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast which supply more than 70% of all the chocolate in the world. Photos reveal children carrying heavy bags of cocoa beans; and articles report of child laborers being locked in rooms, beaten, whipped and slashed with knives.

It's nearly impossible to write about food these days without addressing heavy issues. Large-scale global businesses threaten everyone and everything that stands in the path of supply and demand. I miss the time when as an 8-year-old girl I could behold a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and marvel at its perfection without any humanitarian issues weighing me down. On the contrary, gently pressed between my pincer grasp was the candy world's moon landing: a beautifully engineered, exquisitely delicious peanut butter cup for all to enjoy. There was nothing but the miracle of life to ponder as the impossibly smooth and ever so thin top coat of chocolate melted beneath my index finger. That children should be harmed in the making of anything, let alone something so connected to childhood as chocolate, is deeply disturbing, and must be stopped.

How do we stop this? The good news is, you don't have to boycott chocolate, just the brands of chocolate that source their cacao beans from farms that use slave labor. And, note to big business, if any large corporations out there think people don't boycott brands anymore, consider this recent headline from Ad Week:

57% of Consumers Will Boycott a Brand That Doesn’t Share Their Social Beliefs

We who love chocolate must be vigilant in our chocolate selections. For now, it's ixnay on the ersheyshay and estlenay, and others, until these companies can get their heads out of their bottom lines and start caring about the most vulnerable members of their manufacturing chain. And until drugstores start to carry ethical chocolate like Tony's, you may have to buy your chocolate online from stores that carry slave-free brands.  (I don't know about you, but the idea of receiving chocolate in the mail sounds pretty freaking exciting to me.)

The power to bring about change in the chocolate industry is in our  hands as consumers, and the choice of chocolates we hold. With so many outstanding brands of chocolate to choose from, evolution has never been easier, or more delicious. In my unofficial research, I have found that some of the best-tasting chocolates are made by the most socially conscious companies. Is it pure luck that things often work out this way? I don't think so. Something in my gut tells me that love of chocolate and love of humanity are somehow connected. Tony's Chocolonely is a splendid example.

There's a whole lot more to say about this company and this topic, but, for now, I'll simply end by saying that if you love chocolate, you'll love Tony's Chocolonely. The bars are a bit pricey, but not a rip-off. They're easy to spot, and popping up everywhere in NYC.

Finding Mr. Good Bar: Chocolate bars by Tony's Chocolonely spotted recently at Bedford Cheese Shop in NYC.

Of Mice and Penguins

Too Damn Cute: White-chocolate covered mice from L.A. Burdick, NYC



Let me tell you, ordering a chocolate mouse is very different than ordering a chocolate mousse. For one thing, you have to open your mouth a lot wider when you speak, it can't be mumbled. I'll bet there are some people who would never even bring themselves to place such an order, they'd feel too silly. Clearly, I am not such a person. And if you do go to L.A. Burdick on 20th Street between Fifth Ave and Park and ask for an espresso and chocolate mouse, here's what you'll get:

Speedy Gonzalez?: Espresso and mouse (also available in dark chocolate and milk chocolate)


Along with tiny mousse-filled meese with long stringy tails, Burdick offers European-inspired tarts, pastries, cakes, coffee drinks, tea and a heady variety of drinking chocolate. I've yet to sample their pastries but I assume they're good. Here's why:

One day while sitting at a corner bench, a lovely french family—parents and their adult son—sat at a table very close to mine. The son placed their order and returned to the table and sat down with his parents. They talked quietly, languidly, the father doing most of the talking while the mother focussed on closing the clasp on her bracelet, which her son, noticing her struggle, ever so gallantly closed for her. (Could you be any more charming?) I didn't see exactly what pastries they were having but heard the mother remark, "C'est bon ça, mon Dieu!"

If that isn't a golden seal of approval, I don't know what is. Who, afterall, knows pastries better than the French? Some might know pastries as well as the French, but no one knows pastries better than the French. And that's that.


Here are some exciting highlights from this extraordinary little chocolate shop.

As previously mentioned... PENGUINS!

Snowmen! (non-abominable)

Their Signature Valentine's Day Assortment... GORGEOUS!!!

And how many chocolatiers honor the birthday of Scottish Poet Robert Burns? Made with real scotch (the good kind), this manly assortment has plenty of burn of its own. (FYI, I'm speaking out of enthusiasm for the concept, I haven't actually tried these.)

Haggis Not Included: Limited edition Scotch Whisky Truffles in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns.

The Deal Closer @ The Standard Grill

Square of Chocolate from the Standard Grill in NYC, under the High Line. This is not the dessert showcased in this blog post; I thought it best to leave that as a surprise.


At the Standard Grill, executive pastry chef, Frederick Aquino, has loosened chocolate cake's corset to create a fun and flirty chocolate burlesque called the Deal Closer. A king's portion of fluffy chocolate mousse covered with generous mounds of unsweetened whipped cream and sprinkled with thick chocolate shavings, arrives in a large glass kitchen bowl with two rubber spatulas. One taste and I said to myself about Chef Aquino, I like this man's joie de vivre!

First there's the eye-popping excitement of a big bowl of chocolate mousse. And spatulas, not spoons—what more do you need? Beyond the feast for the eyes, there's the titillating sensation of delving deep into a rugged heap of whipped cream followed next by billowy mousse, and then, fathoms below, a rich bed of chocolate cake. If you decide to tackle this mountain of mousse with a metal spoon, as I did, you can add to your sensory enjoyments, the muffled, hollow, tapping sound of the spoon hitting the bottom of the glass bowl somewhere beneath all that mousse.

As mentioned, the whipped cream is unsweetened, which is brilliant because given the portions too much sugar would really slow you down. The mousse is sufficiently chocolatey with little sprinkles of salt to keep things from getting monotonous. The chocolate cake is actually the most rewarding part of this whole extravaganza, it's like the rich soil you've been mining through all this mousse for.

Perfect Chocolate Cake @ The Chocolate Room

While on a wild-goose chase for a particular brand of dirt cheap wine (see next week's post), in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I came to a screeching halt at a discreet little cafe called The Chocolate Room. The dessert-dedicated menu described a trove of quintessential chocolate delights. It's a compilation of chocolate's best hits—chocolate layer cake, a brownie Sundae and chocolate pudding—together in one little darling of a cafe. The Chocolate Room even has daily specials and homemade ice cream. Menu in hand, I looked forward to someday going inside.

This past Sunday, I returned with a friend and a veni, vidi, vici spirit, to sit and sample the three-layer chocolate cake:



Here it is in the photo above: a neat slice of cake, with the exception of the front corner which I dug into before remembering to photograph it first. As you can see, the pale chocolate frosting has a subtle gloss and contrasts nicely with the dark, reddish brown cake. The texture is firm but moist. As for the taste, hang on to your laptop, it's pure chocolate splendor!

There's only one way to describe a chocolate layer cake with all the right parts—perfect! And this is just one of many dazzling options available at The Chocolate Room to satisfy your hunger for chocolate.

Vegan Chocolate Is Delicious!

On this rather august October day, I had an urge to visit Central Park and so I took the A train uptown. Upon reaching the 59th street entrance, near the giant marble fountain statue, I found myself in the middle of some kind of rally. It was an event called the 2010 Walk for Farm Animals held by Farm Sanctuary, a rescue group for farm animals. The organization holds annual walks throughout the country, and Canada, to raise awareness of the atrocious treatment of farm animals and to support rescue efforts.

"Factory farming" is the latest term to describe the transmutation of the livestock industry from wide, open meadows to filthy, cramped cages. What amazes me is how these systems get put into place. It takes a lot of engineers, builders and workers to give life to such a fundamentally inhumane idea. Then there are the meat-happy consumers, whose insufferable apathy toward how the food they eat is raised and slaughtered, fuels this monstrosity of an industry.

Thankfully, as this Farm Sanctuary event proves, not everyone is a meat-eating zombie. At the event, as you would expect, there were books and t-shirts for sale at various tables set up near the park's entrance, but what caught my epicurious eye were chocolate bars.

The cost for a 2.2oz bar was $5—pricey, but considering that the entire sum would be donated to animal rescue groups, technically, the bar itself was a freebie.

Chocolate bar in hand, I scampered off to find an empty bench where I could sample this exciting treat. Would it be bland and sugary? Or bitter and funky— like some of the high cocoa-level, organic chocolate bars I've tried from Whole Foods? I was hoping for something that would at least taste as good as those World's Finest chocolate bars that high-school kids sell for charity.

I carefully opened the cardboard box, and here's what was inside:

As you can see from the left pic, it's an attractive bar of chocolate divided into neat squares. It's nicely wrapped in well-sealed plastic that is of a thick and exceptionally clear quality. Someone obviously put some thought into keeping this chocolate attractive and fresh.

No signs of the figs and nuts noted on the label, so I flipped the bar over.

WOW—Lo and behold, fruits and nuts aplenty!

There was a refined texture and vibrant flavor to this vegan chocolate—no bitterness to wrestle with, no excessive sweetness to get passed, no heavy dairy to cling to your palate. It tasted as if all the heavenly connotations of a fresh box or tin of Dutch cocoa were perfectly distilled into bar form. The fruits and nuts made it all the better.

Truth be told, I happen to be a huge fan of milk and heavy cream. Typically, I like European chocolates that are so full of milk, they almost taste like cheese. But this vegan chocolate bar actually convinced me that milk isn't a necessary ingredient for delicious chocolate.

As it turns out, this dazzling, scrumptious chocolate is made by Jean-François Bonnet, former pastry chef of Daniel, in NYC. Aha, well that makes sense, no wonder it's so good. Bonnet is now the brilliant chocolatier behind a company called Tumbador Chocolate based in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, Tumbadour doesn't have a storefront, it only sells its chocolate online.