Cooking Bible: Probably the best chocolaterie in France

Bernachon in Lyon, France, is culinary icon in the world of pastry arts and chocolate making. It is also a third-generation family business, first started by Maurice Bernachon.

Bernachon imports, roasts and process its own cocoa beans for chocolate making. It sources for the best beans from around the world, choosing a variety of beans with unique characteristics which allow the chocolate master to design his masterpieces with unlimited creativity and maximum flexibility. Traditional recipes and methods of processing are aided by modern technology.

The processed beans go through the two most important steps of chocolate making - conching and tempering. Conching is a traditional process used to convert chocolate from its initial raw form (which is doughy or powdery) into smooth couvertures with cocoa butter. It requires patience and skill to understand the different amounts of time required for conching each different batch of raw chocolate - it can be anywhere from a few hours to a week, depending on the desired quality of the finished product. It takes experience to bring out the best of the cocoa beans - under-conching will result in a coarser, grainy chocolate while over-conching results in plain or gummy-textured chocolate.

After the conching process, the chocolate is ready to be tempered. Artisan chocolatiers like Bernachon will temper each piece of chocolate with their respective signature flavours and profiles. All their chocolates are handcrafted pieces and are produced daily for freshness. Unlike commercial chocolates which use emulsifiers and stabilizers, Bernachon chocolates should be consumed within a month even when stored in right conditions. The sales staff explained that this is to encourage their customers to appreciate the freshness and full flavour of the chocolates and their fillings.

The wide variety of chocolates on display was a feast for the eyes. From simple nuts and couverture bars to regular truffles and the more sophisticated ones speckled with gold leaves and exotic spice flavours like chili and lemon grass, each delicate piece is elegance incarnate. The chocolates are sold by batch weight in different box sizes, and the helpful staff offered us little sampling pieces when they saw that we were unable to make up our mind. We thought that it was really a nice gesture.

The other strength of this institution is the Patisserie arm of Bernachon. The cakes, both large and small, are beautifully decorated with carved chocolate pieces, fresh fruits and sugar work. It was also a visual feast. The neat rows of mini pastries arranged by flavour and type sent our sweet cravings to a high.

There were rows of fruit tarts, choux pastry favourites such as hazelnut eclairs and Paris Brests, flavoured mousse based slices, Madeleines, sumptuous-looking white and dark chocolate slices... the list can go on forever. Some of these pieces are crowned with visually stunning decorations.
Besides pastries, there was also a colourful selection of macaroons, some with interesting flavours like cola, pineapples, Oreo cookies etc. There were also fruit glaces and sugar-coated fruit gummies on display.

Beyond sweets, Bernachon also offers savoury items like quiches. The selection of croissants, chocolate bread (Pain au Chocolate) and raisin bread (Pain au Raisins) were also very tempting.
While I had been happily snapping pictures of all these lovely items, my wife had assembled a box of flavoured chocolates as well as a bag of regular ones. We also picked a selection of mini French pastries which kept their freshness well, given the favourable winter weather which was like a big open air refrigerator at 2 deg C. Yet, it took us only two days to finish them all, with every bite a satisfying one.