You’ve probably heard of the names Jacques Torres, Francois Payard and Max Brenner, but it’s time for the chocolate men of New York City to make way for Cecilia Tessieri. The world’s first female chocolatier, Cecilia Tessieri, opened her first store in NYC last month in Union Square. The woman behind Tuscany’s Amedei Chocolate brings years of experience and dedication to our beloved city.
Tessieri started her hunt for the finest cacao beans in the world back in 1990 and spent seven years testing chocolates before beginning Amedei in 1998. The company offers beautifully crafted Cru bars from Venezuela, Grenada, Jamaica, Madagascar, Trinidad, Ecuador and Peru, as well as its popular blends, pralines, and drinking chocolate. Her immense attention to detail and excellence has earned Amedei the Chocolate Academy of London’s ‘Golden Bean’ award in the ‘bean to bar’ category for the past four years. Given the female population’s love for chocolate, it’s surprising that Tessieri is the world’s only female chocolatier. Last week, we joined celebrated cookbook author and food historian Francine Segan for a guided chocolate tasting with Amedei.
At this wonderful, chocolate-centered event, Segan taught us about the chocolate making process, from bean to bar, and instructed on how to taste and smell chocolate as you would a fine wine. We also went country-hopping via chocolate and learned some of the different properties of chocolate that hails from different locations around the world. Lucky us even had the opportunity to try Amedei’s rare Porcelana blend, which is an award-winning chocolate made from a special translucent white cocoa bean pure-strain variety of the Criollo of Venezuela. Only 3000 kilograms of this chocolate is harvested each year, making it a rare treat. Throughout the event we also enjoyed wine and savory chocolate appetizers and went home with a belly full of their rich hot chocolate.
If chocolate happens to be your middle name, then head to Amedei and check out the new competition in town.
Amedei Store is located at 15 E. 18th Street.
