Last weekend as I was strolling along 6th Avenue in Chelsea, I happened upon a new place called the Limelight Marketplace. At first glance you may be confused as to what you’re walking into because the entire structure is that of an old cathedral/church. That’s right, there’s an entire pseudo-mall located inside of a church. Amazing. Even more amazing if you remember that prior to the Limelight Marketplace and after it was a church, this venue was one of the best clubs in the area: Limelight (and later Avalon which didn’t last too long). Well, walking through gothic-style doors of the marketplace the first thing that drew demanded my attention was the black and white checkered floor: shiny, marble and beautiful. All of the stores lining the walls of Limelight were designed in an open market feel. There were no doors or no real division from store to store, just open shopping goodness. Once I got to the middle of the shopping area I looked up towards the ceiling and noticed a baby blue sign reading “MarieBelle Cacao Bar & Luxury Chocolates” and I was instantly drawn towards it. Even better, MarieBelle would soon start selling coffee drinks (at which point I will have to drag myself back there to do a more appropriate coffee crawl).
Finding my way up the stairs towards my chocolate heaven I smelled sugar. What were they going to have for sale? Once I reached MarieBelle I could hardly believe my eyes! There were piles and piles of chocolate bark, brittle, cookies and even beautiful meringues. I wanted one (or two!) of everything. The sales executive working that day was absolutely helpful in describing every last delicious dessert in an effort to assist me in making my decision. I knew that I wanted to go with some sort of chocolate brittle/bark but wasn’t sure which as they had dark, milk and white chocolate bases with either toffee, hazelnuts, almonds or pistachios. In the end, I went with the milk chocolate brittle loaded with pistachios and toffee (pictured towards the bottom of the picture with the rest of the scrumptious brittle and bark).
To accompany my dessert, I initially asked for a cup of coffee so I could review them for this blog. However, I learned that the coffee machine wouldn’t be delivered until later in the week. Therefore, I am going to venture back to MarieBelle’s this weekend to finalize the crawl with a cup of coffee….and possibly some more bark. The sales executive managed to tempt me with a different drink: hot chocolate. This isn’t any old Swiss Miss hot chocolate, either. They actually melt down chocolate pieces with milk and water (or really what tasted like cream!) and serve in a cute antique ceramic mug. There were about eight different flavors to choose from including sugar cane chocolate, spicy chocolate and dark chocolate. My chocolate du jour ended up being sugar cane: milk chocolate sweetened with actual natural sugar cane juices (how can you go wrong!?). This cup of chocolate may actually beat out The City Bakery’s hot chocolate, and that’s saying a lot!!
Check out the Limelight Marketplace soon, and while you’re at you must stop upstairs at MarieBelle. Make sure you’re ready indulge and possibly gain some extra pounds because you won’t want to resist and of the chocolate-y goodness that will surround you.
