Plenty of local sweet spots offer unique treats
Happy Feb. 14, procrastinators! The day when affectionate-but-forgetful lovers all over the nation wake up with that sinking feeling of having forgotten something very important that isn’t their anniversary or a dentist appointment. Quick, make that last-minute dinner reservation (good luck) and then out you go for flowers and chocolate, the time-tested duo that says, “I love you honey, I just have to go run an errand real quick.”
There are many forms of chocolate available at every price point, of course, but if what you’re after is some locally made, familyowned bespoke chocolate, Santa Fe has a surprising plethora of choices (and yes, they’re all open today, and yes, they knew you’d all wait till the last minute, so there’s plenty of chocolate still available).
If you’re anywhere near downtown, there’s probably a chocolate shop within five minutes of frenzied speed-walking. Todos Santos ,a longtime Santa Fe favorite half-hidden in Sena Plaza, has love-themed boxes for Valentine’s Day, including saucy, cherry-flavored lips. Chocolate flavors here can be adventurous, like chipotle chile, tarragon and grapefruit peel, cracked black pepper and paprika with smoked salt toffee. And because Todos Santos is also a Día de los Muertos-themed sensory paradise masquerading as a gift shop, you can also pick up add-on presents, like handmade New Mexico-themed, artist-crafted Pez dispensers or chocolate milagros covered in gold and silver leaf.
You could do Valentine’s Day old school at
Señor Murphy Candymaker (several locations), Santa Fe’s oldest chocolatier, swirling ganache for more than 40 years. If you’re in a hurry, it has prewrapped boxes of its signature pecan tortugas, nut barks, bolitas (chocolate truffle rolled in crushed almonds) or fill your own heart-shaped boxes with uber-local milk chocolate green chile and dark chocolate red chile caramels or its new chile pistachio clusters. In case your beloved can’t have real sugar, they also have a whole line of sugar-free chocolates.
For the artisanal foodie in your life, Chocolate En La Plaza is a hidden gem in Plaza Galeria mall just off the Plaza, across from Ji Wang Noodle House. Focusing on small batches of single-origin chocolates (Chocolate En La Plaza only process two pounds at a time of each varietal), on any given day you can choose from truffles made of, for example, 61 percent Mijao dark chocolate from Venezuela (tasting notes include apricot and prune), a milky 40 percent Jivara from Valrhona, or even a 34 percent Icoa white chocolate. Flavors include Chimayó red chile and olive oil-roasted pepitas, green teainfused truffles and green chile cashew bark. And if you want a treat for yourself, Chocolate En La Plaza has chocolate-dipped cookies, too.
C.G. Higgins Confections on Lincoln Street can offer you chocolate and a light lunch (after all that speed-walking). Fill your boxes, sold by chocolate count, with Himalayan sea salt, mango habañero, apple brandy or blackberry balsamic. For an unexpected savory note, add one of its St. Agur Blue Cheese truffles to the box. Under new ownership, C.G. Higgins still offers its signature caramel corn, and its cafe can fortify you with a sandwich or a cup of coffee while you hastily scribble your feelings onto that card.
Closer to Whole Foods (where they have flowers, hint hint), The ChocolateSmith has transformed temporarily into a red-and-pink-clad love boutique, with all kinds of desire-stoking chocolate barks, bonbons and other fancies, including hefty chocolate ganache hearts wrapped in red cheese wax that you peel off before consuming, a satisfying experience that will at first remind you of Babybel cheese but with a sweeter reward. They also offer seasonal truffle flavors, including a coconut cream bonbon, and Cuban Coffee Cups — confections made of sweetened condensed milk and coffee-flavored filling in a little chocolate cup. And if chocolate is not your darling’s thing, you can go to the sister shop next door, Whoo’s Donuts, where they have Valentine’s Day themed offerings like a truffle-filled doughnut or a bright pink doughnut covered in freeze-dried powdered strawberries.
You could also choose to drink your chocolate for Valentine’s Day. Kakawa, the downtown mecca for spicy elixirs and chocolatecovered cacao nibs, offers gift boxes with their “Tonantzin” aphrodisiac sipping chocolate elixir compounded with dark chocolate, rose and damiana (a Mexican herb said to calm anxiety and raise the libido) and one or two pretty little ceramic sipping cups and saucers. The bigger box comes with two, plus a box of truffles — some lovers drink out of the same cup, some like to each have their own. Your couples therapist will tell you either way is fine as long as the chocolate is good. Or, if you head south to Art of Chocolate/
Cacao Santa Fe in the Siler district, you can get a jar of herbalist and chocolate historian Mark Sciscenti’s newest aphrodesiac chocolate elixir (ingredients include aforementioned damiana and ginseng, among other things) or fill heart-shaped boxes with chocolatier Melanie Boudar’s lovely truffles. For something distinctly Santa Fe, they have a Chaco Canyonthemed Pottery Shards collection of truffles printed with the patterns of Chaco Canyon pottery in black and white on top. Art of Chocolate also carries Lover’s Body Paint made by a company called KamaSutra, in case you like your dessert warmed up.
Some places have Valentine’s-themed flavors, like Art of Chocolate’s raspberry rose, red velvet (like the cake) and passion fruit chocolate lips, or C.G. Higgins’ strawberry Champagne and passion fruit kiwi. Chocolate-dipped strawberries are a perennial Valentine’s Day favorite (best served with a bottle of bubbly). Almost all the shops carry them (only Todos Santos does not).
You can also fill your box with suggestively shaped specialty truffles known sometimes as “Nipples of Venus” — C.G. Higgins has them in raspberry cardamom, Art of Chocolate flavors its creations with Champagne, and Kakawa does its version as an “Aphrodite truffle” with damiana, clove and cinnamon.
Good chocolate doesn’t come cheap, but there are gifts for everyone. Señor Murphy’s premade boxes are on the more affordable end at roughly $20 (though if you make your own, it’s by weight), while the larger two-person Tonantzin box at Kakawa is $65. Most places sell chocolate by weight or by the piece, so just let the salesperson know roughly how much you want to spend to avoid sticker shock after you’ve loaded up your box.
And hey, since the calendar cheated you by putting your favorite holiday on a Wednesday, why not celebrate all week? Art of Chocolate offers a factory tour on Saturdays where you can see how the chocolate is made (book in advance online) for an immersive experience. And according to The ChocolateSmith owners Jeff and Carrie Keenan, Valentine’s Day on a Wednesday means that people tend to move their amorous celebrating to the weekend before or after, though don’t try to use that as an excuse. Otherwise, you might have to go out and buy apology chocolate instead. But still, this is the land of mañana, and some people never learn.
“The crazy busy day here is the day after Valentine’s Day,” says Todos Santos owner Hayward Simoneaux. “The day after is pretty hysterical.”