By Elizabeth Ladzinski
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Chocolatiers across the city are bracing for the inevitable rush of would-be Romeos and Juliets who purchase last-minute Valentine's Day gifts.
Four Manhattan chocolate shops — Bespoke, Kee's Chocolate's, Chocolat Moderne, and MarieBelle — are preparing for the big day by extending hours and offering extra-sweet treats only for Valentine's Day.
Chocolat Moderne's owner, Joan Coukos, is a native New Yorker with Grecian roots. After a spending time in Brussels in 2000, she became enchanted by the idea of making chocolate and started her own business in Manhattan.
Though Coukos doesn't have a brick-and-mortar retail space, she encourages customers to visit her kitchen on the 9th floor at 27 West 20th Street. Customers can purchase boxed collections there, including a special box for Valentine's Day called "Mysteries of Love," which starts at $15.
To pay homage to her roots, she created a "Greek Revival" chocolate assortment, which includes flavors like Kalamata Olive, Mastiha-Orange Blossom, Rose-Pistachio, and Baclava.
MarieBelle, named after founder Maribel Lieberman, is a chocolate shop in SoHo that opened in 2001. Her store, decorated in her signature blue and gold colors, carries ganaches, specialty hot chocolates and nutty barks.
Lieberman was raised in Honduras, and her taste for chocolate is revealed in her creations.
"I grew up in the land of cacao, tasting chocolate from the bean, so when it comes to the taste it goes back to what I grew up with," she said.
According to Lieberman, she makes 15 percent of her yearly sales during February — that's 7,000 to 8,000 boxes of chocolate.
At Bespoke Chocolates in the East Village, Rachel Zoe Insler, founder, left a graduate school program in cognitive neuroscience to pursue her love for making chocolate, and opened her shop in 2008.
All of her production is hand-crafted in her shop, and her best-selling item, the Pretzel-Covered Sea-Salted Caramel, won the 2008 Golden Scoop award for Best Confection. Other flavors include Hazelnut Praline, Strawberry Balsamic and White Chocolate Passion fruit.
For Valentine's Day, the shop will be staying open extra hours, and will be offering a heart-shaped 3-piece box for $9. All of Bespoke's chocolates are $2.25 per piece.
Founder of Kee's Chocolates, Kee Tong, also changed careers. She left a job in finance eight years ago to open up her chocolate shop, "just for the fun of it," on Thompson street.
Her Asian heritage is reflected in her confections, with flavors like black sesame, lotus flower, honey kumquat and pineapple lychee. However, her best seller (which she routinely runs out of by 2 p.m.) is Creme Brulee, a dark chocolate shell with an inner custard. It's best enjoyed when eaten in a single bite, Tong said.
On a normal day, the shop produces 300 to 400 pieces of chocolate. But for the week leading up to Valentine's Day, the shop produces easily over 1,000 pieces per day.
Chocolates at Kee's are $2.45 each, and macaroons are $2.55 each. But, if a customer has a particular flavor in mind for Valentine's Day, they can call ahead to place an order, as flavors sometimes run out.
"If you're gonna come, you better come early!" Tong said with a laugh.
