For those in the catering business, there is a new chocolate company out there, started by Olivier de Loisy, a son in the family that started Valrhona. Chocolaterie de l’Opera is priced slightly lower than Valrhona, and they have a range of single estate chocolates for catering only.
The chocolate is very good, although my brother and I both think that Valrhona still edges it in terms of clarity of flavour. It’s definitely worth a taste, though, if you’re looking for chocolate for your kitchen.
One of their most interesting offerings is toasted cocoa nibs (right). We could definitely find a use for those!
The distributor in Ireland is La Rousse Foods.
Technorati tags: chocolate, Valrhona, Chocolaterie de l’Opera, cocoa nibs
I *highly* recommend cocoa nib tuiles – they can be formed into cups to hold a scoop of ice cream.
Sounds a great idea!
😛 i love chocolate!
I’M SORRY TO TELL YOU THAT BUT NOW IN PARIS GASTRONOMICAL RESTAURANTS (3 STARS RESTAURANTS) THEY MOSTLY USE THIS CHOCOLATE, SO I THINK YOU SHOULD TRY AGAIN!! MAY BE YOU HAVE A BETTER TASTE THAN THESE CHIEFS….
Catherine,
as much as I like Chocolaterie de L’Opera i do agree with the original post that Valrhona slightly edges them on complexity.
I’m a chocolatier who worked for some of Europe’s finest hotels and michelin starred restaurants with several 2 michelin stars and yes some of them steer away from Valrhona, mostly cause Valrhona has become too mainstream and they want something different.
also economics come into play, if you have a high yearly consumption Opera can save you quite a bit at the end of the year and that money can be invested in other equipments that the exec fancies more than the name Valrhona.
As a chocolate eaten standalone you can tell the difference, when the chocolate is used in a mousse, sponge, espuma or whatever texture i challenge any chef to tell me the difference between Opera and Valrhona, only very few will have a good enough palet to do that (barring some extreme cases like Manjari). so economics play a huge role 😉
I agree Catherine, funnily enough, the French team at the valhrona world chocolate championships have now won the competition twice, using Opera chocolate! What does that tell you?