Chocolate shops are little places of magic, identifiable by their specific sweet smell and eye-catching gift boxes. While healthy cacao concoctions are on the rise, so too are design-forward chocolate boutiques around the world. Less Willy Wonka, more sleek and serene experience.
Of course Kelly Wearstler, with her Compartés collaboration, is setting a whole new bar (pun intended). The brand’s flagship shop recently opened in Los Angeles at Westfield Century City. “Compartés is such an inventive chocolatier and design-driven California brand,” says Wearstler. “I wanted the store to reflect the thoughtfulness and heritage that is infused within every piece of chocolate and truly embody the art of chocolate-making. It’s a modern interpretation of the classic European chocolate shops of the early 1900s.”
The space, in a dusky emerald color, contains materials all rooted in tradition, from the patinaed copper and brass to the ebonized wood, plaster, and leathered marble. And as Wearstler describes it, “Custom artisanal ceramic bowls, hand-blown glass domes, and brass faucets add a layer of unexpected beauty and California magic to the details.”
Meanwhile, across the country and the Atlantic, on Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris, the chocolate artist Patrick Roger is maintaining his dramatic X-Tu Architect–designed store. As a chocolatier who treats his work as sculptures, there is always something life-size to see in his shop. For Halloween, he made marzipan pumpkins with chocolate touches.
A meditative train ride away is the Madrid store of Oriol Balaguer, who worked for former San Pellegrino number one in the world chef Ferran Adrià. Balaguer is a Spanish chocolatier inspired by architects like Richard Serra. He has won many awards, including “Best Dessert in the World,” and his stores are testament to just that. (Online, his “I loooove you” chocolate box makes for a sweet stocking stuffer.)
And then there is Japanese designer Oki Sato, the lead at Nendo, who says, “I believe that the way of thinking about the design of a small piece of chewing gum or a house should be the same. Although the process is technically completely different, I try to design both scales in a similar way.” Who else could create an incredible sleek and open chocolate store in Tokyo’s Ginza, for Belgian chocolatiers BbyB? Owned by two-Michelin-star chef Bart Desmidt, BbyB is all about the haute in chocolate.
