About
The Max Brenner Chocolate Bar is the realization of the childhood fantasy of many. It is a place which combines tradition and modern design and gives the total experience of chocolate. People who come into the Max Brenner Chocolate Bar must feel that they are entering a special kingdom where nothing matters except the sensual, enflamed enjoyment of sights, smells and tastes.A number of elements lie behind the idea of the chocolate bar:In the first place, there was a desire to create a place that expresses everything that can be thought about concerning chocolate. All the regular things found in a chocolate shop (chocolate pralines, chocolate bars and the like) and all the additional things that come to mind in connection with it: chocolate cakes, chocolate croissants, chocolate liqueur, chocolate fondue...the vision is that in every place in the world people can find a place in which everything is chocolate.In terms of atmosphere, the place must realize all the dreams and fantasies connected with chocolate. For many people, there is the childhood dream of a house of chocolate: a place in which chocolate flows in pipes, cocoa powder is spread everywhere, giant chocolate blocks.... Today, when one goes to a chocolate shop, there is no special experience. Chocolate shops are very sterile: the pralines are lined up in orderly display, the bright packaging tied in golden ribbons, and the place is clean and shipshape. The feeling at Max Brenners is that in everything which relates to chocolate, things must be exactly the opposite, and we wanted to create a place which allows this experience. The chocolate bar is a place in which one feels chocolate in all ones senses: the rich aroma, the colors, the abundance.Another thing we thought about was to do for chocolate what had already been done many years ago for coffee - to turn it and the use of it into a culture. We do not want people only to come to buy boxes of chocolate tied by a gold ribbon, but rather that their interest in chocolate and purchasing it will turn into a total experience. That people will know the story of chocolate in its full depth and will become true experts in its different aspects and qualities.People take pleasure in feeling that their life is richer and that they are experts in a certain area, up to the point where they can turn what engages them into a ritual. This feeling can be expressed in various ways - if it is the pleasure from reading the names of the special grapes from which the wine we drink is made, or the thought about preserving wine at an exact temperature or pouring it into a special vessel to allow it to breathe - all these things create ritual. With chocolate, a ritual has not yet been created in which a person knows the special way to drink cocoa after whipping it, or what is special about a chocolate block made from beans grown in a certain area. The chocolate bar attempts to develop a consumer culture around chocolate, a daily culture: every person can find his favorite chocolate beverage, the beans suitable for his personal taste and so forth.The purpose of the chocolate bar is to broadcast chocolate at every level that we can think of: on the one hand - a chocolate pralines corner that conserves aesthetics, prestige, and sterility, very delicate things. On the other hand - whole blocks of chocolate, which express passion, sensuousness, and the experience of the plenitude of chocolate. The design as well creates a supermodern and fashionable place, but also preserves warmth, nostalgia and romance. A feeling of yesterday. Thus, the clothing worn by the sales people conveys a feeling of an old factory, the colored floor and, to a certain extent, the bar itself is reminiscent of a corner grocery store in days gone by, with heavy wooden shelves holding the merchandise. The idea was not to mimic the past but rather to integrate between supermodern design and nostalgic aspects.Seating at the chocolate bar is designed to fulfil culinary appetites but also to create a magical atmosphere, romance, nostalgia and the sensuousness connected with chocolate. To this purpose, we expect the employees at the chocolate bar to convey to their guests knowledge and stories on the tradition of chocolate, the different types of cocoa powder, the variety of different flavors among the products, and the special utensils intended for drinking hot chocolate beverages. A person who enters the chocolate bar must feel emotion, almost disbelief at what he sees. To create this state of affairs, the bar display must always give a feeling of abundance: bags filled with chocolate powder, like an oriental market enveloped by smells and colors; wooden boxes spilling over with truffles coated with cocoa powder and light and dark rochers; transparent pipes through which hot chocolate beverages flow; gigantic milk, bitter and white chocolate blocks, with giant knives beside them; and above all, the rich and addictive fragrance of cocoa beans - roasted, grated, cooked...
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