By Mary Leigh Fitzmorris, who writes in this space as the Gourmet Daughter
Piety and Desire
If you’re anything like me, and that is sad, single, and stone-hearted, Valentine’s Day means nothing but a reason to consume chocolate in the shape of a heart which somehow seems more acceptable than just buying and eating an everyday chocolate bar. With that in mind, I sat down last week with Christopher Nobles, owner of Piety and Desire Chocolate, to bring a little homegrown flair to this year’s chocolate binge.
If this is the first you’re hearing of Piety and Desire, it’s no surprise. It occupies a small space on Broad at Washington, and if you weren’t making a planned stop at neighboring Laurel Street Bakery, you could easily drive by without realizing what you’re missing.
Tucked away behind chocolate brown curtains lies a single room kitchen with a small, no-frills storefront area, where Nobles and two other chefs quietly push the boundaries of filled chocolates. He sells his bars, chocolates, and king cakes online and by order, but happily doles out the confections to whoever gets lucky enough to find a parking spot.
Not his dream location, he explains, as finding a spot to make small scale chocolates turned out to be a bigger feat than he anticipated. The business qualifies as “Food Manufacturing” which left limited options that were temperature-controlled and weren’t massive empty warehouses. But he makes the most of his unexpected home with frequent collaborations with neighboring Roulaison Distilling Co., and for now, he solves the parking problem by opening for customers at 2.
Not much of the young business seems to have been by design, in fact, which only adds to the charm of Noble’s success with the venture. After studying Psychology, the New Orleans local bounced around the restaurant business in both front and back of house roles to allow him the flexibility to work as a musician as well. He always was drawn to cooking, particularly on the savory side, but after many years he felt that working in a restaurant kitchen just wasn’t quite the right fit.
So he took a different approach. He took a few courses on chocolate making at Ecole Chocolat, went to Nicaragua to learn about the cacao fermentation process, and did a third program at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners. (He also studied gelato making while in Italy and I’ll be waiting not-so-patiently for you to decide to open Piety and Desire Gelato, Chris.) Then, with enough knowledge in hand, Piety and Desire was born.
A little over a year since their opening, this ebb-and-flow approach to the business has clearly served the entrepreneur quite well. After planning to focus on producing high-quality hand-crafted chocolate bars in the small closed kitchen setting, Nobles is now selling a selection of about 15 totally unique bonbon, king cakes, plus his originally planned bars, in a small retail area furnished with a couple of display cases he lucked upon when Blue Frog Chocolates closed early last year.
While this maybe wasn’t what he saw when he started, he certainly is still having fun with it. His rotating menu of bonbons showcases an exploration of the limitless possibilities of ingredients, one he attributes to his background in savory. He consistently has a hearty lineup of alcohol-infused bites (this is New Orleans after all), but he also gets wild with his seasonal specials, like a Christmas special flavored with Douglas Fir, or, my personal favorite, the Saints special which was filled with goat cheese ganache. Love it.
The “Trust Fund Gutter Punk” is the grab bag chocolate, where he mixes the leftover fillings from past specials into a unique combo for single chocolate. I sampled a mix of the Christmas tree ganache, the goat cheese ganache, and an unspecified fruity filling. You know what? It worked.
If you want to check out this craftsman’s work, you’re in luck. In addition to hosting frequent tastings and pairings around town, you can get a hold of his single-origin chocolate bars at St. James Cheese Co., Stein’s, Home Malone, Hey Cafe, and the airport. Or, pop by after 2 at the Homebase to build a box of bonbons. If you haven’t gotten a Valentine yet, fill a handmade and hand-painted chocolate heart with your own selection of chocolates, so you can see your Valentine break your last-minute heart.
Valentine’s or not, give Chris a visit sometime. Whether it’s inside-the-box chocolates or outside-the-box king cakes, you can be sure he’s getting creative with something you don’t want to miss.
Piety And Desire Chocolate
2727 S. Broad St New Orleans
504-491-4333
2-7 Closed Sunday & Monday
pietyanddesirechocolate.com
