This article is part of the FT Globetrotter's guide to Zurich
As we stood in a highly organized Swiss line of chocoholics outside the Lindt Home of Chocolate museum, waiting for the doors to open, there was an eerie calm – even among the schoolchildren. There was reverence and anticipation in the air, as if this were more akin to a pilgrimage, a visit to the mother ship, rather than a trip to a museum.
“Mother ship” is the word for this huge, futuristic white building just outside Zurich city centre, designed by architects Christ & Gantenbein, which also has a dedicated bus station, “Lindt & Sprüngli”, across the road. But this is no Wonka-style chocolate gallery – the emphasis here is on innovation and Swiss precision (although there is a 9m-tall chocolate fountain, with a wide ledge at the bottom to prevent any Augustus Globe wannabes from leaning over too much).
In addition to illustrating the chocolate-making process from roasting and fermentation to conching (the process that grinds cocoa into a smooth liquid) and tempering, the museum tells the story of the 19th-century “Swiss pioneers” who rescued chocolate from its sandy shell. past the bitter and unpalatable past by adding milk powder and sugar to produce the sweet, melty substance that has been the enemy of our waistlines ever since.
The day before, upon arriving in Zurich on a Swiss International Airlines flight, I was handed a small square of chocolate wrapped in the colors of the Swiss flag, the flavor of the country even before I set foot on the tarmac: sweet, milky. And with an alarmingly low cocoa percentage. From Nestlé to Lindt, via Toblerone and Suchard, these are the things the country is known for, not the 85 percent cocoa I adore. The Swiss produce more than 180,000 tons of chocolate annually, and are themselves the world's largest consumers of it, with an average of 8.8 kg per person per year. It remains to be seen whether the current cocoa shortage will change.
But thanks to a small group of disruptors, there's a new kind of chocolate in town. The second leg of my argument away from industrial production led me to three producers in Zurich who have quietly revolutionized the face of Swiss chocolate – bringing the bean back to the bar, creating excitingly flavoured, high-cocoa and very high-cocoa single-serve chocolates. Few added ingredients.
In addition to making amazing products, they insist on sustainability and transparency in everything from their relationships with cocoa suppliers to the way they source beans and recyclable packaging. Their bars can be purchased online (although they currently only ship within Switzerland), in many stores in Zurich or purchased at the source.
Lafleur
Uetlibergstrasse 65, 8045 Zurich
Range: 11 different pieces, drinking chocolate (70 percent and 100 percent), other miscellaneous products
Production: eight tons in 2023
Cost: From CHF 9.30 ($10.50 / £8.25)
VISIT: The Lafleur factory is open for visits, guided tours and chocolate purchases on Thursdays and Fridays, from 3pm to 6pm (except public holidays)
FYI: Lafleur can be purchased at Schwarzenbach delicatessen in Zurich
website; directione
Lafleur was founded in 2018 by a group of four chocolate enthusiasts from Zurcher, Zelia Zadra, Ivo Müller, Heini Schwarzenbach, and Laura Schalschli, who were determined to create a Swiss chocolate brand that focused on cocoa flavor but was also highly sustainable and ethical.
Lafleur has developed close relationships with farms in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The beans are shipped by sea freight to their small factory in central Zurich, where everything (except the hulling) from roasting and roasting to tempering and packaging is done on site. Even distribution is done via electric bike.
While LaFleur is strict when it comes to ingredients—only organic whole milk powder, sugar, and cocoa butter are used—they are open about the cocoa content: Their bars range from white to 100 percent chocolate. On my visit to LaFleur's headquarters, Laura Schlesli broke down several bars for me to taste, explaining the individual complex flavor characteristics of each and how each cocoa crop produces a different taste. Favorites were a 74 percent bar from Hacienda Limon farm in Ecuador, with honey and malt flavors — “very nice in the morning,” Shalashli said — and a 70 percent Brazilian bar of Fazenda Vera Cruz, with a tobacco flavor. And earthy, fruity acidity. But the tastiest of all was the “Bread-Crumb Dragées” – crunchy “recycled” bread crumbs covered in dark milk chocolate.
Jarkoa
Butzenstrasse 60, 8038 Zurich
Franziska Ackert, one of the founders of the female-led chocolate company Garçoa, came up with chocolate by making cheese, which, she told me, is not surprising since “they are both about fermentation.” She learned about the process of drying and fermenting cocoa during a trip to Peru in 2012, and it opened her eyes to a new type of chocolate that was “more interesting than anything made in Switzerland.” Garqua was born in 2016 with similarly high ethical standards to LaFleur: the beans are imported from farms and cooperatives in Ghana, Guatemala, Peru, India and Uganda, and all the rest is done in-house.
Garçoa chocolate consists of only two ingredients: cocoa and organic raw cane sugar. “People ask why we don't make milk chocolate,” Alert told me. “They are afraid of the bitterness of dark chocolate.” However, Garçois is not like that: its cocoa content does not drop below 70 percent – any lower than that and it becomes difficult to temper without cocoa butter – but only rises to 90 percent. The bars, each with varying thicknesses and surface textures throughout (all of which influence how you taste it), are packaged in cool, futuristic packaging with colorful cosmic designs.
This is chocolate that you can taste like a fine wine as the flavors unfold on your palate. In fact, says Ackert, “I wanted to make chocolate that was as valuable as a bottle of wine. I want people to feel like they can bring a piece of this to dinner.”
Taucherley
Fabrikhov 5, 8134 Adliswil
Range: 30 pieces and chocolate covered nuts
Production: 40 tons annually
Cost: starting from 6.90 Swiss francs
VISIT: Chocolate tours during the summer
FYI: Taucherli can be purchased at Globus, Jelmoli, Alnatura and other gourmet stores in Zurich; It will soon be distributed in the United States
website; directione
With its bright, boldly packaged bars, Taucherli is the largest and most playful of the three brands, and Kai Keusen, the founder, is a larger-than-life chocolate lover who is so attached to the bean that he has a tattoo of it (a large cocoa bean on one forearm, a chocolate bar on the other ). Keusen got into the trade after working in construction and consultancy, and after taking over a small factory in the suburb of Adliswil, he set up Taucherli – named after the Eurasian crow often seen dipping and diving in Lake Zurich – in 2015.
Keusen sources its grains (mainly organic) directly from its suppliers in Colombia, Cameroon, Mexico, Ghana, Bali and Nicaragua. Unlike Laflor and Garçoa, he occasionally makes an exception for vanilla in some bars and isn't afraid to experiment with exotic additions like candy crackles, rose petals and rapeseed. His packaging, with its distinctive black-and-white bird motif and jazzy-coloured sleeves, is also on the whimsical side, which is consistent with his democratic view that “chocolate is not trendy, it is not high-end – it is colourful”. “Cheeky, funny.” In the past, Keusen's collection has included a “vaccination” bar (“to get people talking”), a rainbow pride bar, and a bar emblazoned in curly letters with “Willy Taucherli”—surely a nod to Zurich's own Wonka.
Who do you think makes the best chocolate in Zurich? Tell us in the comments below. And follow the FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
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