This summer’s revelation is a corner inspired by cocoa and good handmade ice cream, a “delicious” boutique in every way, where chocolate outdoes itself and takes on new identities, where the seasonality that relegated this food of the gods to a steaming cup or a flat bar is a thing of the past. Chocolate in its new, fresh, modern semblance becomes a caress for the palate, an enchantment for diners at the end of their meal – or a snare for the object of our unspoken affections.

Whether the thinnest of sheets incorporating crisp caramel-flavored bits, broken into an infinity of shapes, or the brand-new filled bonbons inspired by ice cream, every bite at the Via Idone shop, each creation by chocolatier Simone Giovannini (on the left in the photo, with his partner Nicola Sgarallino), is a lively, light puff of delicious chocolate plus ingredients sourced from small farms and quality producers. In each new, exclusive variety, whether filled with mango, passion fruit, or amarena cherry or the most classic of the classic fondants, “Lapralina” is a chocolate with a heart of soft ganache and cool ice cream. Each piece made as though it were the only one of its kind. Each with a lightness calculated to exalt the flavor of the chocolate and the fruit with no digressions or additions to mar an indelible memory.

This same lightness returns in the “Liquorini”: little spheres in which chocolate, as though it were a shot glass, is a crisp embrace holding rum, limoncello, mirto, or ponce alla Livornese – the latter, of course, reminding us that we are in Tuscany, where traditions, excellence in raw materials, and handcraftsmanship are values to live by. That’s why every bite is wrapped almost as though it were a work of art and packed in a box designed to accompany it safely home, especially on a hot summer’s day.

Besides all this, the boutique also tempts us with candied orange peel, pralines and dragées, sweet spreads, and dark chocolate and vanilla ice-cream mini-penguins for signature desserts.

Cioccolato Giovannini
via Idone 6, Forte dei Marmi | +39 371 4594905
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