Lesser-known Paris delight makes museum-going a decadent treat
By Victor Borges
PARIS – Though not as grand or encyclopedic as, say, the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay, Paris’s Le Musée du Chocolat, or Museum of Chocolate, tastes much, much better.
In fact, the experience offered by this museum is meant to appeal to all of the senses as it tells the story of chocolate and chocolate-making. It is a shrine to the cacao bean.
Deceptively large, the exhibition space is managed by a multilingual staff, so language will not get in the way of the enjoyment. And though one might think an afternoon spent with chocolate would both spoil an appetite for dinner and overwhelm the palate, one would be wrong.
The first thing you will notice upon walking in are the flavors and types of chocolate dispensed from what look like all-you-can-eat bird feeders. Choose from dark chocolate, milk chocolate, hazelnut chocolate, and cookies and crème.
The first floor is home to the various methods for harvesting, curating and creating chocolate. The exhibit starts with Mayan and Aztec rituals celebrating the cacao bean. It also displays a brief history on how these people groups worshipped the bean because the deity Quetzalcoatl favored it.
The next exhibit opens with a brief history of the Spanish exploitation of the Aztecs in order to gain knowledge and access to the cacao bean. Following the brief history lesso, however, is the display of hundreds of chocolate-preparing and serving apparatus, including china from every region of the world.
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The Museum’s chocolate replica of the Eiffel Tower is
by artist Jean-Luc Decluzeau.
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In the basement await some of the more impressive artifacts, many of them olfactory. There are chocolate sculptures of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. There are “Fashion Week Paris” mannequins wearing very elaborate clothing and jewelry made exclusively out of chocolate. You can also see posters and signs made out of chocolate.
Chocolate-making demonstrations are offered each hour. Part show, part instructional, the demonstration includes making chocolate figures, explaining how different types of chocolate mold differently and, of course, a sampling of what is made right before your eyes.
The Museum admission fee is 10 euros, which includes the chocolate-making demonstration. For 3 euros more, you can get one of the best hot chocolate experiences of your life. You’re given a cup of piping hot milk, for which you choose one of their many flavors of chocolate to melt in.
Street address: 28 Bd de Bonne Nouvelle, near the Strasbourt-Saint Denis metro stop, in the 2nd arrondissement.