Comments (0) Best Chocolate Shop - 2006
Galler
920 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
954-523-9690; 877-425-5375
When you've been raised on Hershey's kisses, European chocolate may be an acquired taste, like graduating from applesauce to apple martinis. But Belgian candy wizard Jean Geller is betting that the American palate is educable, and his flagship store on Las Olas, opened last Thanksgiving, will test whether Geller can make Floridians googly-eyed over his little mouthfuls of bliss. Geller's products -- handmade chocolates priced at around $1 each -- have the texture of liquid silk and a way of causing very pleasurable hormonal imbalances. These candies are for mature audiences only: The meister sees sugar as an "adulterant" and uses no preservatives. Milk chocolates are 30 percent cocoa, and the darks top out at 85. Instead of gummy sweetness, you'll bite into flavors like gin, curry, mango, kirsch, gingerbread, angelica, pistachios, Arabica, Earl Grey tea, or salted butter caramel -- and it's not out of the question that someone might finish an entire 150-gram tin of chocolate-dipped candied orange peels in a single sitting (a New Times staffer holds this record). Pick your treats by the piece, the pound, or by the box -- an assortment of 24 runs around $25. The effect is rapturous, decadent, addictive.
