My wife Lauren and I have arrived in Bruges, Belgium, with a simple plan. We will take a leisurely walking tour, see some sights, and stop occasionally for chocolate.
Seeing the sights proves easy. Bruge had the minor good fortune of being an international trading center until the 16th century, and the major good fortune of being utterly unimportant for centuries thereafter. The ornate stone buildings thrown up at the height of its power ended up being too unimportant to tear down in the following centuries; narrow streets that had been cobblestoned for endless caravans of horses were only sporadically worth paving over, and never worth widening, for a later trickle of carriages and autos. It’s as if the whole town were tossed by Renaissance artisans right into the hands of 20th century preservationists, sailing over the heads of 400 years of developers and civic improvers.
But as we consider how best to implement the all-important candy-eating phase of our plan, we gradually begin to panic. Chocolate shops can be found two doors down from other chocolate shops, which are across the street from chocolate shops that face out onto alleys crammed with chocolate shops. There are more chocolate shops here in Bruges than there are Starbucks in less civilized outposts like New York or Los Angeles. You cannot throw a rock without hitting a chocolate shop and having it returned to you as a delicious truffle with an unusually crunchy interior.

The problem is, there is no reason to pick one shop over any other, and so we pick none. Paralyzed with choice, we do not enter a single chocolate shop the entire morning. We see an ornate town hall that was built in the 14th century and given stunning Art Nouveau ornamentation at the beginning of the 20th. We see a belfry that was constructed over the course of 300 years, beginning in 1282. We see a church that is said to contain several drops of the blood of Christ. It’s all very nice, but none of it is coated in chocolate, and by lunchtime, I am beginning to despair. “Maybe we should just give up,” I mutter, “and walk into every single chocolate shop we pass.” Instead, we head off to look for frites.
Frites are Belgian French fries, served with mayonnaise. They are fried twice, and the result is that they are soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. To those who have not had frites, the combination of soft and crispy may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but those who have tasted know. The duality of a properly prepared frite carries with it the mystical satisfaction of any other multiplicitous paradox, such as “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”, or “ice cream and hot fudge.”
We order our frites from Frituur Peter, a small wooden stall back in the Markt, and find a nearby bench to sit while we eat. The frites are good, although not as perfect as those of Benita’s Frites, the cramped Los Angeles eatery that got us hooked on the delicacy. (Incidentally, given that the names “Peter” and “Benita” are already taken, if you wish to start your own frite shop, you may want to name it “Dieter’s,” “Skeeter’s,” or “Bahavadgita’s,” depending on whether you are setting up your shingle in Germany, Alabama, or New Delhi.)
As we are dipping the last of the fries in the last of the mayo, Lauren looks me in the eye, and says, with the first threatening tone she has used during the ten years I have known her, “I hope you weren’t joking about stopping in every chocolate shop.”
In fact, I was, but I have no wish to die at the hand of my bride with a frite through the jugular, and so I assure her I was entirely serious.
We walk out of the square, and within ten feet, we come upon a chocolate shop, where we purchase two marzipan truffles, and two “praline mit hazelnut.” They?re all good, but not quite as sweet as I like my chocolate, and we agree that we’ve had better.
And so we head out the door of Chocolatier Van Oost, at Wollestraat #11, and make the long journey to Pralinette, at Wollestraat 31b, nearly half a block away. The fifteen seconds of our voyage have given us ample time to agree that we had better stick to one truffle apiece from now on, if we hope to have the stomach space to carry out our plan. We therefore purchase 2 coconut truffles from Pralinette. They have a deliberately rough, hand-made look to them, and an interesting creamy flavor that is sweet enough for me, and almost too sweet for Lauren.
But as pleasant as the taste is, there is not much chocolate flavor in it. I am reminded of General Bosquet’s comment, upon witnessing the doomed charge of the Light Brigade: It is magnificent, but it is not war.
We are now beginning to realize that, if we want to be truly scientific about this process, we must keep proper records. We label the bag from Chocolatier Van Oost with a large #1, and the bag from Pralinette with a #2, and we write down on the appropriate bag what we purchased, how much it cost, and what our conclusions were.
We head on, turning a corner, and there, at Rozenhoedkaai 1, is a shop called Moeder Babelutte. Inside is a picture of the shop’s namesake. The elderly Mrs. Babelutte looks to be something of a truffle herself, with a darkly stern expression coating the saintly love for mankind that must lurk within her, given that she is a chocolatier. In fact, Moeder looks remarkably like Mary See, founder of See’s Candies, which makes the best mass-produced chocolates in the United States. It is an auspicious resemblance– so auspicious that we freeze. We are gripped by the same paralysis that seized us in our earlier attempt to choose an individual chocolate shop, but this time, in microcosm. Any one of the truffles before us could be the perfect piece of chocolate, destined to change the way we view cocoa products forever.
As we think about it, the customer ahead of us points to the display case and asks, “What does ‘shlagroom’ mean?”
“Whipped cream,” the counter man answers.
Bingo.
We order two pieces of dark chocolate filled with whipped cream, step outside, and take a bite.
Bingo.
This is what we have been looking for. Superb chocolate flavor, superb whipped cream flavor, and an excellent interplay between them. We are tempted to spend the rest of the weekend at Moeder Babelutte, but there are hundreds of shops we haven’t tried, and we are grittily determined to voyage across the whole spectrum of human chocolate-eating experience.
We are now near the Onze-Lieve Vrouwekerk, an 800-year-old church that is considered a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. It contains one of the only Michelangelo sculptures outside of Italy. Since it is between us and the next chocolate shop, we figure we might as well go in.
The Michelangelo is kept behind a glass wall, several yards away from its admiring public. Although our guidebook raves about the delicacy with which the sculptor brought forth Madonna and Child from solid stone, they both look a little stiff to me. I’m not saying I could do better, but I have reason to believe that Michelangelo could.
And while a thick knot of visitors press their noses against the protective glass wall, a canvas that strikes me as a genuine masterpiece is crammed offhandedly and unnoticed in a rear corner of the building. It is The Avocation of St. Matthew, by Jacob Van Oost. It shows the saint-to-be, who, moments before, must have been sitting calmly at a table, surrounded by friends or business associates. Now he is halfway to his feet in surprise. Everyone at the table notices that Matthew is standing up; none of them seem to understand why. That’s because they’re looking directly at him, instead of following his astonished, slightly doubtful gaze, which is directed out the open door and towards the front stoop. There, leaning as casually as a man waiting for a pool table to open up, is Jesus Christ himself. It is one of the finest depictions I have ever seen of a deeply mysterious aspect of human life: that rare, electric moment when everything changes.
We leave the church, and I am abruptly jolted from my reverie by the most hostile chocolate shop on the planet. The shop window of Chocolatier Sucerbuyc is covered with signs. One, using pictograms, warns that all umbrellas must be deposited in the umbrella stand on entry. A second warns, “NO FREE ENTRY. FOR YOUR COMFORT, BUY INSIDE–LOOK OUTSIDE.” A third warns that the shop accepts “Geen kaarten. Pas de cartes. No cards. No targetas.” A fourth gives the precise exchange rates the shop offers for those currencies it deigns to accept; the moneychangers have evidently infested this sacred ground. I don’t know what the fifth sign says, because I don’t speak Japanese, but I’m guessing it’s nothing nice.
Nonetheless, scientific expeditions cannot be sacrificed to subjective human emotions, and we overcome our distaste. Lauren enters to buy truffles while I stare down the most singularly peeved-looking falcon I have ever seen carved out of chocolate and put on display in a shop window. Moments later, Lauren emerges to report that the managers refuse to sell individual truffles. If they are going to trouble themselves to accept your money, you must display your gratitude by purchasing an entire box.
It entirely possible that the confectioners of Chocolaterie Sukerbuyc are relentless perfectionists, as demanding of their customers as they are of themselves. It’s also possible that they’re a bunch of obnoxious chiselers providing shallow, superficial pap to the tourists who bus into Bruge, wanting their masterpieces and their chocolates delivered prepackaged. Suspecting that “Sukerbuyc” is merely the Flemish translation of PT Barnum’s most famous saying, we move on.
Fortunately, across the street is one of the many branches of Leonidas Chocolates, one of Belgium’s biggest chocolatiers. We buy two cremeÙ” café truffles. We eat them, and then jot down our notes. Lauren writes, “Shop #4. Heartier, crunchier, nice aftertaste. Best for bunfry buik.” (As a result of the demands of our experiment, Lauren’s handwriting is by now deteriorating at an alarming rate. I believe she means to indicate that Leonidas presents the best bang for the buck.) The creme café filling is not quite to my taste, but it’s an extremely well made chocolate.
We are now beginning to notice pedestrians carrying waffles with ice cream and hot fudge, eating as they walk. Careful triangulation allows us to trace the waffles to their source, a small fast food stand. It is unclear whether this falls under the jurisdiction of our eat-something-from-every-chocolate-shop rule, but, based on the ancient Jewish principle of “building a fence around the law,” we decide to err on the side of greater rigor. We buy a waffle hot fudge sundae, and devour it within minutes. The waffle is not especially hot or fresh, but the fudge sauce is very good–far better than anything we’ve had since we moved to England several months ago.
Slightly giddy, we head down Stoofstraat, a nearby alleyway, and stagger into Tsjokoreeto, where we are served two champagne truffles. Lauren likes the complex texture, but I can?t even finish mine. It tastes too much like champagne, and not enough like candy.
The alleyway opens onto a quaint square, where the Halve Mann Brewery is located. We tour the facilities, and, afterwards, we are offered a free drink. Lauren takes a beer. I refrain, because I am a teetotaler who believes in a life of steady moderation. Instead, I take a hot chocolate, which I pour down into my stomach to greet the waffle sundae, the half a champagne truffle, the creme café, the shlagroom, the coconut, and the marzipan praline already in residence.
Leaving the square brings us to Wijngaardstraat, where we find the Chocolate Corner, and order two tea-flavored pralines. We lean against a wall to take our notes, but we are now too chocced up to remember how many shops we’ve been in. Instead, we write down the time: 5:22 PM. Feeling loquacious and full of bonhomie, I write down that my praline had “a complex, jasminey flavor with a long finish. Texture is creamy w/ a little bit of crunch.” Lauren, whom I fear is beginning to crash, has nothing to add other than “Nice aftertaste.”
The exertion of a day spent eating has, not surprisingly, made us hungry. And so we head off for dinner, passing on the way Lady Chocolates. Our powers of human reasoning nearly entirely wiped away, we are unable to agree on which flavor to purchase. I order a hazelnut with puffed rice; Lauren orders a “paola,” which is chocolate filling with cocoa chips. We agree that both pieces suffer from a texture that is slightly too hard, and a taste that is fine but not spectacular. Frankly, I find mine unappealing enough that I leave it half uneaten. (A few days later, I will eat the other half, and find it delicious, leaving me to suspect that I may possibly have been slightly overtruffled.)
We proceed to the restaurant. By the time we finish our dinner, our internal chocolatometers have reset themselves, and we are able to enjoy a hot fudge sundae with truly excellent hot fudge sauce. We take this as a sign that we are fully recovered from our difficult voyage to the boundaries of human knowledge, and we carefully write down the name of the restaurant to pass on to our friends.
Later, back home again in London, I will look at our notes and discover that we apparently had dinner in a place called “slkjsfkh3zz48z7*&@#.” Next time you are in Bruge, I highly recommend you go there.