At the risk of sounding like a Stepford-eyed influencer, the green gift boxes at Casa de Chocolates are, like, omg super cute! Tied up with red, yellow or green ribbons, they’re the color of Christmas trees for a reason. Located on Ashby Avenue since 2012, the Berkeley chocolate store with Oaxacan and Michoacán roots just opened a second location on Park Boulevard. After catching co-owner Linda Sanchez right before the new store’s grand opening, I drove up to Glenview to take a look inside.
The shelves are lined with the aforementioned gift boxes and candy bars, which are also smartly wrapped for the season of giving. The front counter is a line of demarcation between the retail and manufacturing spaces. One baker, or maker, was on a break from fabrication while I visited but a lot of pristine machinery sat quietly resting. At the register, Linda’s sister Rosa managed the store. She’d chopped an Inca crunch candy bar into bite-sized sample pieces. The quinoa crunch summoned up another famous, puffed-rice “crunch” bar that I associate with my adolescent snack routines.
I also purchased a bonbon in the shape of a Dungeons & Dragons’ die filled with creamy peanut butter. All of Casa de Chocolates’ available bonbons are displayed up front on a bright white plate. There’s quite a range. Memorably, the Mexican vanilla is decorated with snowflakes, the coconut is perfectly round with an ombré effect and the hibiscus is made to look like a milky-pink heart.
Sanchez told me one of her roles is to support recipe development while her business partner, Jesus Chavez, minds the financials. “He’s the person telling me we have a very thin budget, or he’ll tell me what is possible,” she said. Chavez has also answered the phone every time I’ve called the store.
The two took over Casa de Chocolates from the company’s founders, Amelia Garcia and Arcelia Gallardo. Once in charge, Sanchez felt like she didn’t need to spend time adjusting the original recipes. “All of our stuff is really delicious,” she said. “Now that we have a second location, our line of production and offerings are going to expand.”
Casa de Chocolates currently features the major fruits of Latin America, such as passion fruit, mango, guava and tamarind. Sanchez said, “We don’t need to develop those things. So I think, ‘OK, is there something new?’” One item she’s developing is a gluten-free chocolate cake recipe with amaranth. At the start of the production process, Sanchez asks herself the question, “How can we remake and reintroduce different crops and fruits that are traditional to Latino America, and give them a twist?”
To celebrate the Park Boulevard opening, she created a vegan truffle that combines two flavors, a cinnamon ganache with a goat’s milk caramel filling. “It’s just an incredible bonbon, between the cinnamon and the caramel and the gaminess of the goat’s milk,” Sanchez said. “It’s getting creative with what we already have in-house and making new profiles that customers will really enjoy.”
Casa de Chocolates currently features the major fruits of Latin America, such as passion fruit, mango, guava and tamarind.(Photo by J.S. Edalatpour)
Casa de Chocolates’ mission, Sanchez noted, “is to uplift Latino America but specifically the Indigenous Mesoamerican influence on cacao, which dates back to the Olmecs.” She said that, according to research about the region, the Olmecs were the first people to have processed and consumed cacao.
“We use European techniques, the bonbons, but all of our ganaches, caramels and flavors are of Latino America,” she said. She cited the mole bonbons made with spices and chilies, tequila and Mezcal ganaches, and the fruit flavors from parts of Mexico and Central America. “Our specialty has always been and will continue to be dark chocolate because dairy is not really something that was part of how we thought about chocolate in Latino America,” she said.
Initially, Casa de Chocolates used Guittard chocolate. But a year and half ago it transitioned exclusively to sources from Brazil, Ecuador and parts of Mexico. Sanchez considers that transition to be a major milestone for the business.
“One of our new chocolatiers went to Ecuador to visit folks who were working with the cacao where our chocolate was coming from,” she said. “In the past few years, we have been really intentional to source our cacao specifically from Latino America.”
Casa de Chocolates, 2629 Ashby Ave., Berkeley, and 4228 Park Blvd., Oakland. Open Mon noon to 5pm; Wed-Sun 11am to 7pm. 510.859.7221. casadechocolates.com