Brussels is full of chocolate.
Everywhere you walk in Brussels, you’ll find shops selling nothing but chocolate—in every single block—and often more than one. Sometimes it’s the big-name companies like Leonidas and Godiva, but more often it’s local chocolatiers.
The chocolates are ornate, colorful, often quite detailed, and sometimes you could honestly call them artworks.
And they’re displayed as if they’re fine jewelry. Here (above) is a photo of a shop window we passed one evening. Below, you’ll also see a photo taken the same evening outside of Tiffany’s.
The jewelry is priced in the thousands.
The chocolate? It wasn’t marked.
One store we passed was almost empty except for a long counter down one side and what looked like a huge lump of chocolate down the middle, being used as a display stand for a pitifully small selection of chocolates.
Down the opposite wall were a couple of long shelves with an equally sparse selection of chocolate bars (priced at between six and nine euros for a 100 gram bar). In the window there was an extremely big, gracelessly curly chocolate sculpture, and the whole shop was dramatically lit in green, for some reason. As you’d expect, a store with so little stock in so much space in such a prime retail location has absolutely exorbitant prices.
So here’s my question: how do people who live in Brussels surrounded by chocolatiers—never mind the amazing quality of the bread and croissants here—avoid growing as big as a house? And if you know their secret, could you please share it with me?
4 Comments
Karen Prowse
February 3, 2013 at 8:59 amNot to mention the incredible variety of Belgium beers! Maybe it is the combination of all three: chocolate, breads abd beer. Someone shoul do a serious study on this! Any volunteers?
rachela
February 5, 2013 at 1:35 pmI’m not a beer fan, but I do wonder how long a person could go eating nothing but bread and chocolate…
Charlotta
February 5, 2013 at 11:45 amI know What you mean. I’ve Lived in The Netherlands and Switzerland. Unfortunately I was allergic to chocolate going there, but found a cure the last year . I plan to write about that in my blog some day 🙂 . You Can go here if you are interested in checking the blog out! http://www.globatris.se/expat-blog/
Ps Came across your blog via twitter
rachela
February 5, 2013 at 1:38 pmA cure for allergies? I’d love to find a cure for my craving for sweets, especially chocolate… I’ll check out your blog.