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When I wrote my book, The Great Book of Chocolate, I got to meet — and learn from —some of the best chocolatiers in the world. One of them was Michael Recchiuti, co-founder and chocolatier of Recchiuti chocolates in San Francisco.
At the time, artisan and bean-to-bar chocolates were emerging in the United States, and Michael was at the forefront, incorporating diverse ingredients, such as herbs, locally grown oranges and pears, Key limes, Hawaiian coffee, and French fleur de sel, into his sublime confections.
On a recent visit to Paris, I invited Michael into my kitchen, along with his wife, Jacky, who is the co-founder and creative director of the company, to chat about chocolate, including discussing some of the differences between French and American chocolates. We also did a tasting of some of his favorite chocolates.
Michael recounted how we met, which was when I was working on the first edition of The Great Book of Chocolate, and the (admittedly, extreme) lengths I was going to get the recipes right, and we’ve become friends ever since.
At the time, I had never tasted chocolates like Michael’s before, which combined flavors and incorporated ingredients, such as chocolate-covered pears infused with Key lime juice and fleur de sel accenting smoky caramel. Michael enrobes Kona coffee ganache centers with dark chocolate, tarragon gets combined with grapefruit, and he embeds handmade bars of Mexican chocolate (a special chocolate made exclusively for him by Valrhona) with burnt caramelized almonds.
Michael also uses the darkest milk chocolate I’ve seen in tablets of chocolate that raises the milk chocolate bar (so to speak), using milk chocolate that contains 54% cacao solids. In collaboration with San Francisco coffee roaster Linea, he melds finely ground organic coffee beans with white chocolate into an irresistible café au lait bar, reminiscent of a café latte.
Michael has also been working with NASA and Astreas on a “luxurious functional truffle,” which astronauts will be taking into space, to keep them alert — and satisfy their chocolate cravings — while in the stratosphere. Here on earth, The New York Time’s Wirecutter team rated Michael’s chocolates, The Best Boxed Chocolates.
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If you’d like to try some of Michael Recchiuti’s chocolates, he’s provided a promo code PARISKITCHEN15 that will give you 15% off your purchase in his online shop, which is also valid in the Ferry Building store in San Francisco. Be sure to use that code when ordering. (Note: They can only ship to U.S. addresses. The code is valid until December 31, 2026.)
I hope you enjoy my podcast chat (and chocolate tasting) with Michael and Jacky Recchiuti as much as I did! - David
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