Condesa | Kerstin's Chocolate Blog

Last week we visited a chocolate shop called Tout Chocolat in the Condessa neighborhood of Mexico City. It took some work to get there: dragging the kids through the busy Mexico City subway system was no fun, neither was getting turned around several times before getting the map right. We were hot, tired and disgruntled by the time we got to the shop and we made it just before the afternoon rains.

Luis Robledo, owner and chocolatier extraordinaire was there to greet us as we stumbled into his shop. Cool, mellow and self-effacing, he instantly made us feel welcome and at ease (Darius later pointed out that Luis shares these characteristics with many other chocolatiers we’ve met). He seemed genuinely surprised that we made the trek to visit his shop after reading an article about him which counted him as one of the 10 best chocolatiers in North America. In appreciation he gave us a plate of his favorite chocolates to try.

We, of course, ravaged them, fighting over the ones that peaked our curiosity such as the lime caramel and the white peach and apricot(the one for which he was now famous). They were all amazing. The lime caramel blew me away with its intensity. The spiced caramel was rich and complex and so was the single origin ganache made with 100% Mexican chocolate. It was exciting to taste these bold flavors and meltingly smooth ganaches and centers. His execution was nearly perfect every time. This is not by accident; Luis Robledo has an impressive CV. He has worked with Daniel Boulud, Francois Payard and Canada’s own Thomas Haas in New York. He also counts Le Circque and the Four Season’s New York as his past employers. Little did we know, but we watched him compete for Mexico at the World Chocolate Masters at the Salon du Chocolat in October!

[See the photos that we took of him in Paris at the end of this post.]

Since I was fresh out of chocolate, I needed to stock up for the next little while. I bought a large box of chocolates (the largest), a couple of bars (he uses Valrhona) and some fruit and nut bark (which ended up being one of my favorites).

These items brought us great pleasure over the next few days in Mexico City. I might even go so far as to say I had a revelation about chocolate while tasting his spiced caramel bon bon. But more on that in the next posting…