Comptoir du Cacao
Comptoir du Cacao is a family chocolate maker in Bazoches-sur-le-Betz, a village in the Gâtinais, the farming country south of Paris in the Loiret. For more than twenty years it has made fine chocolates from pure cocoa butter, without artificial flavorings or preservatives, and it is best known for its gourmet bars: thick tablets of dark, milk, blond or Ruby chocolate studded with caramelized nuts, fruit and biscuit, sold in clear wrappers that show exactly what you are getting.
The house
The business grew out of a family kitchen. Françoise and Jean-François Desmartins began making chocolate at the Domaine de l'Anche in the mid-1990s and set the company up formally in 2001; their son Benjamin Desmartins now runs it. Production and packing still happen at the chocolaterie in Bazoches-sur-le-Betz, where around thirty people work, rising to forty-five in high season, including a team of five chocolatiers.
The approach is straightforward. Chocolate is made with pure cocoa butter only, and the house sources the great majority of its other ingredients, nuts, fruit, butter, sugar, from France. It is certified under the Cocoa Horizons program, and its cardboard packaging carries the FSC label. The catalog runs to roughly two hundred references built on 78 chocolate recipes, from flaky pralines and truffles to spreads and the gourmet bars Clipperton carries.
The work has been recognized at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris, at the Great Taste awards in London and at the International Chocolate Awards. Comptoir du Cacao sells from its own shops in Paris and through fine grocers in France and abroad; its chocolate now travels to some three dozen countries.
What they make
Clipperton's selection is the gourmet bar line in its four chocolates: 72% dark, 36% milk, caramelized blond and naturally pink Ruby, made from Ruby cocoa beans with no coloring added.
- Caramelized Hazelnuts Dark Chocolate Bar – 72% dark with whole caramelized hazelnuts.
- Guérande Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Bar – 72% dark finished with hand-harvested Breton sea salt.
- Pistachio Milk Chocolate Bar – 36% milk with caramelized pistachios.
- Salted Butter Caramel Blond Chocolate Bar – caramelized white chocolate with a touch of salt.
- Plain Ruby Chocolate Bar – berry-bright, naturally pink chocolate.
The full Comptoir du Cacao collection also includes bars with candied orange, raspberry, ginger, Espelette pepper, coffee beans, cookies and nougatine, and the playful Eiffel Tower, fish and red-hearts tablets that make easy gifts.
Why Clipperton chose them
Clipperton is a family importer, and Comptoir du Cacao is a family chocolaterie: parents who started at the kitchen table, a son who took over, a workshop in a village rather than a factory in an industrial park. We buy from them directly. What sold us, beyond the story, was the honesty of the product: real cocoa butter, real nuts you can see through the wrapper, and a range wide enough that everyone finds a favorite. We wrote about how French chocolate differs from what North Americans are used to in our Journal: French vs American chocolate.
