Marc Thuet

Chocolate: It’s become synonymous with everything sweet — from Valentine’s Day to delicious desserts — but according to chef Marc Thuet, there’s more to chocolate than just good taste.

Thuet — a French-born and trained chef and owner of Bistro & Bakery in Toronto — says he enjoys working with chocolate because of the variety of ways he can use it: “You can be very creative,” he says.

When consumers think of chocolate, they tend to think desserts but chocolate is not only delicious in sweet dishes, he says, but also in savoury ones. Thuet has included the staple in game and venison dishes. But whatever the use, Thuet believes that to achieve great results with chocolate, ****s need to use a high-end product.

Recently holding ****ing seminars in Toronto demonstrating recipes using Green & Black’s organic chocolate, he looks for two key points in chocolate; that it’s organic and that it’s fair trade. Green & Black’s, a U.K. company based in London, was internationally the first chocolate to be certified fully organic and its Maya Gold chocolate bar was awarded the Fairtrade Mark in 1994.

When picking out chocolate, Thuet continues, consumers should take into account who makes it, where it’s made and the quality of the cocoa bean used. Customers should also simply open it up and taste the chocolate.

“Chocolate is a matter of taste,” he says. “I don’t like very sweet chocolate. I like chocolate with personality. I like chocolate that leaves a different taste on your palate.” And don’t be fooled by the pricing, Thuet advises. Chocolate is similar to wine and coffee in that even the really expensive brands aren’t necessarily the best.

Visit greenandblacks.com for more info.

Cindy Moustakis for Metro Toronto


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