Belgique Chocolatier (Closed)

Très Délicieux, Très Cher
Belgique Chocolatier, Kent
February 25, 2012

This place closed in the fall of 2012. This was always my go-to anytime I went hiking out near Kent. Sad face. Also, just having re-read this page in 2019… it’s a shame I put no effort into it, as Belgique was pretty great.

The Chocolate Trail folks say:

According to The Boston Globe, “…heaven must be like a box of chocolates from Belgique.” A trip to this authentic chocolate shop in quaint Kent will transport you to the streets of Belgium, complete with cobblestone floors, mosaic of Brussels scenery and the aroma of Belgian hot chocolate. Chef Glissen, who has cooked for royalty all over the world, offers artisan house-made and imported chocolates and truffles and handmade ice cream and sorbets to delight even the most discriminating chocoholics.

Oui, oui, j’ai succombé à la piste de chocolat au Connecticut. Le sigh.

I didn’t want to succumb to the Connecticut Chocolate Trail, but I simply had to. The tourism department of the state, whose ineffectiveness and shortsightedness I have lamented over the years, have revamped and retooled in early 2012. One of their new additions is the so-called Chocolate Trail.

If I find out that the chocolatiers featured must pay to be part of this thing, I will delete these pages. I don’t think that’s the case, though, as most of the featured businesses are very small artisans who a) don’t need the exposure and b) probably couldn’t afford it anyway.

For my purposes, the chocolate trail serves as another way to convince my wife to come along with me on my adventures. And if only for that, I like it.

I also like chocolate, but I’m hardly a fiend for it. I have come to appreciate the influx of good chocolate these past few years, but like pretty much every other food item that I “review” (for lack of a better word) on CTMQ, I’m certainly not an expert.

I’ve read many blurbs about Belgique over the years – all in praise of the quaint little shop in the heart of Kent. A few months ago, I stopped in after a very tiring day of hiking along the Appalachian Trail and only bought a small coffee to fuel my drive home. I had planned to buy Hoang some treats, but my brain was too tired to sort out what she’d like from the vast selection. For the record, I was not a fan of the coffee.

When we visited together, my brain was well-rested but still couldn’t determine what I would necessarily like. We each ordered a small hot chocolate – Hoang got the “creme de chantilly” (aka whipped cream) with hers. She then carefully and methodically picked out a few perfectly sculpted little chocolates – marzipan something and a little pyramid and something else.

I felt forced into buying something. Not finding any high-end goobers, I opted for some sort of dark chocolate with espresso and another piece with coconut. All five pieces were simply beautiful.

The imported (from Belgium) marzipan fruit things were so perfectly created I wouldn’t want to eat them. Look at these beauties:

Hoang declared the hot chocolate the best she’d ever had. As her palate is far better than mine, I can’t really argue, but I didn’t think it was the best ever. But ignore me – now and forever along this chocolate trail thing.

I would love to copy and paste some of the great information from Belgique’s website, but since it was created in such a way that disallows that, and created with auto-loading french music, and created with some incredibly slow-loading frames, I am too frustrated with it right now to do much more than offer some highlights.

(At least with this place’s closure, the website is history too.)

Belgique creates authentic Belgian chocolates (in Belgium, they are called “pralines”) … You know what, I can’t take their website anymore. I know my computer is old and slow, but it’s just killing me. Sorry.

Put it this way: Belgique makes really great, really beautiful, rather expensive chocolates in Kent. (6 small chocolate pieces and 2 small hot chocolates were over 16 bucks.) The chef is from Belgium and they have a new store in New Canaan too – to which fresh chocolates are shipped daily from Kent. They also sell ice cream in the summer.

The shop is “so cute” according to my wife and the staff there was attentive and nice.

I will stop writing now because my anger with their website is going to unfairly color anything more I say negatively.