Chocolate Week 2/5 @ Mary (Brussels/Antwerp/Bruges, Belgium)
Welcome to the second episode of my Chocolate Week blog, the Valentine's Week special. Today's chocolatier I'm so excited about introducing to you is Mary.
Mary
73 Rue Royale
1000 Brussels
Belgium
https://www.mary.be/en/home
I still remember the first time I went into one of their beautiful boutiques - it felt like I was in a jewellery shop. Their gorgeous pralines are neatly arranged and displayed behind glass screens just waiting to be selected by me. The atmosphere and the interior is elegant, and the staff wearing the white gloves were matching perfectly to the sophisticated look.
The design of their pralines is chic, especially those ones with a lovely woman's face on it (I assume that's the 'Mary' yes?) For these specific pralines called 'LADY', you can choose percentages of bitterness, for example, Lady 1 is with (48% bitterness), Lady 2 (58%), Lady 3 (68%) and Lady 4 (78%).
Yes I tried them all, and I would say my recommendation is somewhere around 50~70% bitterness - Lady 1, 2 and 3.
I have read that Mary Delluc opened her first shop in Brussels in 1919, and it was an Art Deco-style tea salon, which was popular among lovers of chocolate bonbons. Then it became one of the Belgium's top chocolatiers, and still is today. I must say you can somehow sense the feelings of that time, i.e. 1919, you feel like you're time-travelling when you're stepping into the shop, which I love about this chocolatier.
I knew Mary had their stores in major cities in Belgium, such as Brussels, Antwerp and Bruges, but I just discovered that they also have some shops in Ohaio, US, wow. I'm curious to know how they decided to open their first international shops in Ohaio, and also interested to think about all the delicately-formed Mary's pralines flying all the way to Ohaio (I'm sure they have a production line over there... but still!)
So that was about Mary. It is definitely one of my favourite chocolatiers in the entire chocolate world : ) I would love to hear about your favourite chocolate shops as well, so feel free to comment below and let me know.
I'll be posting about another fabulous chocolatier tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Episodes:
Chocolate Week 5/5 : World's Champion...
Chocolate Week 4/5 : Superbly posh! @ ...
Chocolate Week 3/5 : Cannabis, ...
Chocolate Week 2/5 @ Mary
Chocolate Week 1/5 @ Del Rey...
Love the chocolate tour idea during Valentine Day's week, totally appropriate!
Hi lovely jessicapixie, how's it going? I was nearly stopping writing just after only several posts, oops! It's so easy to feel like this 'well.. no one is seeing it, no one is commenting on it..' isn't it? So, thanks a lot for your encouragement!! I wonder how this sad view counts could grow one day : D
Don't give up!!! You are actually doing pretty well ;) And with all the fuss there was about cryptos crashing in the past weeks, I feel like people were just a bit less interested in Steemit. But cryptos are back on track and we go to keep posting! Enjoy your chocolaty pleasures :)
It's so nice to receive comments from you. It's 11:20pm in my time here, and I've just managed to post today's chocolate story, thanks to your encouragement! ps. hope you like it.. zzz
Ah! Chocolate Week! I just wrote about chocolate myself :)
Yes! Seems like lots of people here are talking about chocolate this week. Your chocolate post was brilliant, upvoted!
Anytime is a good time for chocolate, IMHO (ok, I'm also single, ha!). Thanks for the kind words. Your photos and words above made me sentimental for my own chocolate tasting experiences in Brussels!
Lovely to hear that you've been to Brussels and visited Belgian chocolatiers. There're so many great ones, I'm thinking which one to pick for my next Choco Week episode.. Hope you still remember some of the places :)
This chocolate is so beautiful it'd be hard for me to eat it!
Hello agnikana, I know, usually I display them on my cabinet and just look at them for a week or so before finally eating them :)
I didn't know that the origin of the very popular mery chocolate brand in Japan was here!!
https://www.mary.co.jp/mary/
I learned a lot!( ・∀・)Thank you!
I thought this Belgian 'Mary' and Japanese 'Mary's' were two different brands, are they connected somehow? I didn't know! Thanks for reading my Chocolate Week blogs mdn!!
Perhaps there is no real business connect,maybe japanese brand is using/imitating this brands spirit/existence way.