Jean-Paul Hevin

This relatively large store is up the street from Luxembourg Gardens. The first thing you see is the window display, which immediately gives away what the trade of this store is, aside from making pastries.
Inside is sleek and modern; shiny surfaces made of metal and glass. On the shelves around the store are chocolate sculptures including a white chocolate shoe and a milk chocolate Eiffel Tower. These shoes were in other colors such as red and green when we had just got here in early June, but soon disappeared. When I asked the lady who worked at the store what happened, she replied that the shoes were just in the window for Mother's day, but she was able to show us the left over white one. The smaller chocolates lie protected in a glass case on the counter. Milk chocolates, dark chocolate, and every shape and size of chocolate sit in neat little black boxes. Just looking at them takes your taste buds on a journey.

I chose a medium-sized chocolate called a Bouchee Caramel Croustillante. In the shape of a square, it is milk chocolate with caramel in the middle and crumbled wafer on top, covered in more milk chocolate. It's shell was soft and hard at the same time, and the caramel was nice and gooey, while retaining a slight taste of coffee and fruit. The wafer was crunchy with the kind of texture of chopped up nuts, and it was layered nicely. It was a sublime chocolate.

The chocolate itself is made right outside of Paris in Colombe. Jean-Paul Hevin has been making chocolate for 24 years, getting the cao-cao beans from exotic places such as Haiti and Java. A small, dark chocolate rectangle, the Caraibe, which is a ganache nature, is, according to the vendeuse, the chocolate of choice for most people. It looked good, with it's little ripples on top and dark chocolate coating. So if you find yourself around Luxembourg Gardens...Bon appetit!