An Insider’s Guide to the Best Chocolate in Paris

livemint.com:

FRANCE’S LOVE AFFAIR with chocolate runs deep in the culture. “In French we would say, ‘On baigne dans le chocolat depuis tout bébe.’ We bathe in chocolate from babyhood," mused Paris native Cécilia Jourdan, CEO and founder of the Hello French online language program. “You know, instead of having a bottle of milk, I’m sure some of us have hot chocolate as babies." She was only half-joking.

Still, there has never been a better time to eat (or drink) chocolate in France. Both the quality and the quantity of offerings have reached an all-time high: In the last 10 years, the number of artisan-chocolatiers in the country has grown by nearly 40% according to the business newspaper Les Echos. Paris, in particular, overflows with chocolate boutiques.

You can barely walk more than a few blocks without finding one beckoning with an artful display of truffles and bonbons. Even those familiar with the city will gain a new, delicious intimacy with the place by mapping a travel itinerary around its great chocolateries. As a starting point, you can’t do better than the venerable Debauve & Gallais, in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district.

In 1779, founder Sulpice Debauve, a pharmacist, concocted a headache remedy with cocoa for Queen Marie-Antoinette. Soon these bonbons—known as Les Pistoles de Marie Antoinette or the Queen’s Coins—became tout la rage. In 1800, Debauve was named chocolatier to First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and opened his boutique with his nephew Antoine Gallais.