Vicuña Chocolate Cafe and Factory
15 Main St.
Peterborough NH
Afew days ago, i was sitting at home watching a local magazine style show that focuses on places and people all over my beloved granite state, when something caught my eye, now its not uncommon for them to feature things out here in my part of the state, we are after all an artistic and musical mecha of sorts, well for New Hampshire anyway, but this had nothing to do with that, this had to do with a local woman named Neely Cohen, all around titan in the pastry and chocolate world as well as a former winner on the Food Network program "Sweet Genius", who with a kickstarter campaign started Vicuña Chocolate Cafe and Factory in a small hole in the wall sized shop literally 4 minutes from where i live in Peterborough. Now, i do love my chocolate, blame my mom's love of dark chocolate for that, and i do love to share wonderful places to go or buy amazing things to eat, and the idea of one of these places literally being down the street from me pushed this place right to the front of my must see line. And oh my god am i glad i did that.
Now going in, I knew that this place was an everything made on properly type of location, their chocolate bars are made in house, their pastries are made in house as well, as is some of their more unique items, they are the only place in New Hampshire, and by a quick googling, one of the only places in the US, where you can sit in the cafe, and partake of an old world tradition that is starting to make a come back the world over, drinking chocolate, think of it like a purer form of hot chocolate or hot coco, they also are one of the only places I am aware of that offers a tea made from the husk of the Cocoa pod from which the beans used to make chocolate comes from, tea being a secret passion of mine, I'd never heard of this before, apparently its very healthy for you, which is nothing new, well atleast to the those in the know on the whole "dark chocolate is good for you" movement.
We went in first thing on a Sunday morning, before the crowds showed up, i like to do that, it gives you time to look around and really get a good look at the place. We met Neely the owner, who was very friendly and talkative, and incredibly knowledgeable about her craft, and when you look into her history with chocolate, which goes far beyond winning a competition show on Food Network, way beyond, she has actually picked cocoa pods at the very farm where she gets her supplies from. There is even a place in the cafe were you can watch the staff making the chocolate on property, they weren't working when we went in, but I would assume it gives the place a sort of magical Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory like feel, but you know, with out a creepy boat ride through a tunnel or midgets that are forced to work there for asylum from the ravages of their homeland or any of the many unsafe dangers Wonka had on property. Honestly, if we had more time, i would have loved to sit and try their drinking chocolate, it smelled so very good, plus it seems like the kind of experience i need to have in life, sitting down, with a nice chocolate and coco nib brownie and having some drinking chocolate, sounds old timey, but awesome. My only real complaint about the cafe itself is it felt like it needed arm chairs, but i guess with their product the stains would be insane to clean. Oh well. Still a great place honestly.
As for their products, I mean thats why we're all interested in this anyway isn't it? They sell their in house made chocolate bars, chocolate chip and sea salt cookies, coco nib brownies, drinking chocolate, poor over coffee and cocoa husk tea. Now let me first tell you this, the coco nib brownies, are with out a doubt, the greatest brownie I have EVER had. They are moist and batter like inside, while still full of flavor from the nibs, and from the perfectly crispy outside, i seriously wanted to keep eating them till i couldn't handle putting anything else in my stomach, they were amazing, and honestly worth the drive to this place alone. The chocolate chip and sea salt cookies are just as amazing, a nice crisp bottom, a nicely golden browned top, with nothing but moist cookie dough like inside with giant chunks of chocolate, and just enough sea salt on the outside to make it taste amazing, i really wish she had these and the brownies in dozens, I'd go broke, but I really wish she did, it would be a gold mine. I honestly would love to go back for some of their drinking chocolate and husk tea, they seem incredibly good by the way they smelled from behind the counter. But really, you're all wondering about the chocolate bars themselves aren't you? They offer five kinds of chocolate bars, of which, they are made with bolivian dark chocolate, which is about 80% pure, too those that don't know, 80% pure is as close to pure chocolate as you will ever get, they mix the ground up coco beans that make the chocolate with only pure cane sugar grown not far from the cocoa beans themselves, which means you're getting a chocolate bar thats chocolate content is honestly possibly the most pure you will find anywhere in the world. As for their five flavors, they are pure chocolate, sea salt, yellow chili, coffee, and nib flavored, and now and then they make limited editions, when we went in, we got the last two of their honey and candied ginger bars, which btw, were like heaven in chocolate form. Seriously, you all need to try this stuff atleast once, its truly amazing, and ever so good, honestly there aren't enough words for how good the bars are, I am actually drooling abit wanting to go back for more while I type this, which really is something.
So the big question, is it all honestly worth it? Now I will say this, though the brownies and cookies were reasonably priced, between $3 to $4 per, which isn't all that bad, for the chocolate bars themelves, it is a case of paying extra for the high end quality, the fact there are only two things in the bars you are gonna pay for the purity, the bars are around $9.50 ot do per bar, which I am sure some of you just had a heart attack over, but honestly think about the quality of what you're getting, a chocolate bar that has only chocolate and pure cane sugar in it and is between 80% to 85% pure, which is about as pure as you can get with chocolate anywhere in the world, anywhere, and as most of you know, for that kind of quality, you do have to pay abit more for. So in the bigger picture its abit pricy, but you won't regret it, so its more of a not every weekend thing like the brownies or the cookies, but still a great treat. Honestly once you get to Vicuña and you try all they have, you won't be surprised why, though they are only open on weekends, and only in business sense last October, they've already been in Bon Appetit Magazine, New Hampshire Magazine, The Boston Globe, and many other publications both local, national and international. So if you're ever up around my little town in the middle of nowhere on a weekend, and you feel like trying something sweet and unique, then give Vicuña a try, honestly, you will fall in love, just as i did..... seriously i want one of their brownies like right now.... like RIGHT now.
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Chris
