Pl. de Sant Gregori Taumaturg, 2 Sarrià-Sant Gervasi +34 93 201 18 46
Transport: Muntaner (FGC) MAP IT
Oriol Balaguer :
Carrer de Morales, 21 +34 933 63 22 98 MAP IT
Oriol Balaguer Classic Line :
Carrer Benet Mateu, 62 +34 932 05 43 17 MAP IT
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Yelp 5/5 3 reviews Qype 5/5 2 reviews TripAdvisor 5/5 1 review
Oriol Balaguer's bakeries are the best place to discover the work of one of the most internationally famous Spanish masters of the art of chocolate-making, with his signature chocolates and innovative cake designs. He trained with the elBulli team with Ferran Adrià, and today customers can sample his creations in his bakeries in Barcelona, Madrid and Tokyo, and in countries like Germany, Austria, Australia, Canada, China, United Arab Emirates, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan and Sweden, through the official distributors.
Time Out
Ferran Adrià’s confectionery disciple has shops in Madrid and Japan, as well as distributors in Europe, Asia and Australia.
Easter is on its way and Barcelona’s chocolatiers are beginning their annual scramble to make the most lavish, gravity-defying mones (Catalan chocolate Easter figures traditionally bought by godparents for their godchildren). Someone who never disappoints is Oriol Balaguer—although being fearsomely hip, he tends to go for clean sculptural lines rather than Hansel and Gretel houses or giant models of Tweetie Pie.
Of course, no avant-garde xocolateria in Barcelona is without its boundary-pushing flavours and Balaguer is no exception: expect anything from hot toddy to wasabi, saffron, olive oil, yuzu (an Asian hybrid of sour mandarin and ichang papeda) and crunchy toasted corn hiding inside his signature cocoa-bean-shaped bonbons.
Like high fashion, the chocs, cakes and confectionery are arranged in collections, such as 'Japan', 'Chocotube', planetary globes, 'I Love You' or 'The Chocolate Game' and everything is overhauled twice a year for the new Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter collections. And just when you think it can’t get any more trendoid, there’s the collection named 'Comme des Garçons meets Oriol Balaguer': inspired by the perfumes cdg 2 and cdg 2 man by Comme des Garçons, Balaguer has created a crunchy chocolate in the shape of the iconic perfume bottles.
Seasonal items include amazing truffled Christmas logs or gourmet tortells for Reis on January 6th and there’s also a new line for diabetics, Bye Bye Sugar, that substitues maltitol for the evil white stuff. One of the star gift boxes is the High Techocolate, a €97 laptop-style silver box containing 36 bonbons in 12 flavours and textures including 'lioxocolates' (tiny chocs with freeze-dried spices and herbs) and an audiovisual documentary charting the history of chocolate, all the way from the discovery of cocoa to modern production techniques. Don’t even start to calculate how many Mars Bars you could buy for that amount of money.
Catalan pastry chef Oriol Balaguer has a formidable CV – he worked in the kitchens of Ferran Adrià in Catalonia and won the prize for the World’s Best Dessert (the ‘Seven Textures of Chocolate’) in 2001. His chocolate boutique is presented like a small art gallery, except that it’s dedicated to exquisite finely crafted chocolate collections and cakes. You’ll never be able to buy ordinary chocolate again.
Delicious aromas, contrasting textures, creative sophistication and an amazing visual impact best describe Barcelona based pastry chef and chocolatier Oriol Balaguer’s Easter egg creations. Throughout our history, at the time of Easter, eggs have served as a symbol of rebirth and renewal, as forerunners of Spring. When chocolate became more affordable at the end of the 19th century, bird eggs were replaced by chocolate eggs. In the Third Millennium Oriol Balaguer has taken the art of egg crafting one step further. Each year he surprises us with his new show-stopper Easter egg collection. All his Easter Eggs are artisan works of art; it will be hard to find two eggs that exactly look the same.
Oriol’s chocolate compositions are inspired by contemporary design, art and architecture. Before committing himself totally to pâtisserie he briefly studied fine arts and that rubs off on his pâtisserie and chocolate crafting. His extraordinary command of raw materials, excellent design skills and technical precision allowed him to optimize the sophisticated form and design of his Easter Eggs. Oriol wants his chocolate eggs to tell a story, to be a sculpture of chocolate, to be more than a chocolate egg. Every year Oriol and his staff make 10 new designs. Highly researched and tested before coming into production they stand the test of time, Balaguer’s Easter Eggs became genuine classics over the years.
Oriol Balaguer’s priority is deliciousness. His goal is to get the best flavour out of the product. Flavour goes before visual impact he said several times in interviews. “It all starts with flavours”, though he likes to experiment, to combine flavours that are usually not in the mix together, like mustard in a pastry with cheese, cherries and strawberries. He likes to work with chocolate because of its delicate flavour. “We also have an olive oil chocolate and we start to use white chocolate again. I’ll use it with yuzu. When people taste that, they go crazy”.
In 2002 he opened the Oriol Balaguer Chocolate & Confectionary Studio in Barcelona, his laboratory for thought, development and production, now extended with shops in Madrid and Japan, as well as distributors in Europe, Asia, Australia and the US. Similar to the fashion world he presents twice a year a new range of desserts and cakes for his Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter collections. In 2010 he opened a new project in Barcelona, a bakery at the Carrer Benet Mateu called Classic Line.
New York Serious Seats
It's only been a few days since Borne Confections introduced Oriol Balaguer's chocolate pods to Manhattan, but news seems to have caught on fairly quickly.
Though Balaguer's chocolates are certainly delicious, they're not the avant-garde or revolutionary treats you'd expect given the credentials and back story. In fact, I found that behind several of the pretty little pieces were pronounced hints of nostalgia—references to classics from supermarket shelves and checkout aisles.
The much talked-about corn and hazelnut pod (all pods $2.50) in a milk chocolate shell, for instance, reminded me of a Ferrero Rocher—the corn lent more crunch than flavor, and tasted almost like puffed rice. The women behind the counter insisted it was a salty-sweet combo, but I didn't get as much of a salty kick as I'd have expected. I certainly wouldn't argue if you made me eat another, though.
A dark chocolate and mint truffle reminded me of the flavors and textures of an Andes after-dinner mint—that perfectly creamy and not-too-pepperminty filling done in a far less artificial way, and wrapped in a more delicious shell.
Fans of Israeli Elite chocolate or Max Brenner will be excited about the pop rocks pod, which is just what it sounds like. The little candies are enveloped in a hazelnut crème that conceals the popping sensation until about thirty seconds after you put it in your mouth—the layers make it possibly to get some serious chocolate appreciation and childish fun one right after the other. Fun foodie trivia: like Balaguer, Pop Rocks are based in Barcelona.
Perhaps the most unusual flavor combo was the olive oil and white chocolate ganache, wrapped in dark chocolate. Here, the olive flavor was strong and present, but well balanced by the combination of chocolates. I'm not sure I'd buy it again, but it was the most surprising and unexpected of the pieces I tried.
I don't love white chocolate, but Balaguer works well with it: the yuzu white chocolate pod may have been my favorite of the bunch, with a brightly citrusy flavor that really popped vibrantly.
There's a whole line of liquor flavors, but be warned: they're quite strong. We did love the pear liqueur and dark chocolate ganache, though, and this may have been the prettiest truffle I've ever seen. Then again, at $2.50 a piece, they'd better be.
I'm eager to see what Balaguer does next with his chocolate work—and whether Borne will be carrying any of his more avant-garde creations.
Borne Confections
485 Park Avenue, New York NY 10022 (map)
212-755-5150
Oriol Balaguer, Spain’s rising star pastry chef? I’m not sure about that, as Spain is one tough market to lead, but he sure does make good chocolates! One can only imagine the sleepless nights he and his team have trying to figure out how to decorate the damn mold for his many different flavours!
You see, he only uses 1 mold, the cocoa bean shape, and trust me, trying to come up with different decorations to make each one unique is a pain in the butt. This was my first time tasting his stuff in Barcelona, having only had his chocolates in Japan. At Calle Morales in Barca lies his kitchen and though he was on holiday, his chef prepared the following for me:
- Custom Selection of the most interesting chocolates
- 18 piece collection
- Paradigma de Chocolate – 8 Textures of Chocolate Cake
Conclusion
I found most of the chocolates a tad on the sweet side, but that is personal preference over a country’s preference, just like sweets in India are really sweet to a foreign tongue. The flavours are interesting and some shine and some sputter, which is normal, seeing that he has so many flavours. No one can make 100 types and ensure all 100 are winners!Having had Cacao Sampaka, Paco Torreblanca and some Enric Rovira, I gotta say Oriol Balaguer is one of the best in Spain, with Paco taking top spot (Yes yes yes, I am biased again, but really, he’s got a secret 72% dark chocolate from Mexico that he uses!). Of course, I have yet to visit Yann Duytsche at Dolc outside of Barcelona who is doing some awesome stuff. His book, ‘Sweet Diversions’ is AWESOME.
Is Spain leading the way? I sure hope so, and Oriol Balaguer is its upcoming superstar.
