to fall chocolates.
Interview with Elizabeth Foley
Rapid River Magazine: What makes The Chocolate Fetish an Asheville destination?
Elizabeth Foley: The Chocolate Fetish has been handcrafting our gourmet chocolates in our store in downtown Asheville since 1986. People come to taste our award-winning chocolates, watch our chocolates being made on site, and explore our fun and amazing chocolate art displays.
Over the years we have built quite a following of dedicated customers that tell their friends and family about our shop. I’ll never forget the time we had a couple all the way from Korea come to our shop. When I asked, “How did you hear about us?” they responded in broken English that their neighbor in Korea told them they had to visit The Chocolate Fetish if they visited Asheville.
RRM: Can you tell me more about your chocolate art displays?
EF: Visitors to our store are always amazed to discover that chocolate can be colored into any color of the rainbow as well as sculpted into anything you can imagine. We have a display area dedicated to displaying chocolate sculptures which currently holds three sculptures, one of which is nearly three feet tall. We also have a wide array of chocolate art available in our store including hand decorated high heel shoes, our new hiking boots and for fall, pumpkins, turkeys, black bears, and leaves. The great thing about our chocolate art is that each piece is unique, affordable, and edible!
We also have rotating seasonal displays in our store that feature amazing chocolate art. During the summer we feature a “chocolate aquarium” filled with chocolate shells and fish. The hand applied colors make the shells look so real that we challenge customers to find the one real shell hidden in the display.
Our fall display is based on a Thanksgiving table centerpiece featuring hand sculpted fall flowers, hand decorated chocolate pumpkins, turkeys, and fall leaves. It’s fun watching people interact with our seasonal displays; you have to tell them over and over that everything in the display is edible.
RRM: Do a lot of out of town visitors buy your chocolates for gifts? Do any of them worry about it melting before getting home?
EF: Yes, a lot of people, both locals and tourists, purchase our chocolate for gifts. We offer a lot of great things for gifts including assortment boxes. We recently started offering “Asheville Rounds” which are gifts as unique as Asheville itself. Each Asheville Round is a 6-inch diameter disc of chocolate and is decorated with airbrushed colored cocoa butter to create a Blue Ridge mountain scene. They are finished with a hand piped “Asheville, NC” script and available in milk or dark chocolate.
During the summer people do worry about the chocolate melting but we have lots of ways to make sure that doesn’t happen. We ship nationwide and we often have visitors select things in our store and then ship them back home. When planned right we can actually have the chocolate arrive the same day you get home so you don’t have to worry about it at all. We also offer convenient reusable cooler bags and ice packs. These bags will keep the chocolate cool for up to 48 hours and have a convenient easy to carry handle.
RRM: Do you ever offer tours?
EF: The best way to get a tour of our shop is to join an Asheville Food Tour (ashevillefoodtours.com) on Wednesday or Friday. We’ve been a part of this downtown walking tour since it began in 2009. We give guests a thorough tour of our shop including history, how to identify high quality chocolate, and a “through the glass” look into our kitchen and of course samples.
The great thing about our shop is that our production kitchen is glassed in so you can always see where the magic happens. From inside our shop you can see our dipping room where we hand dip over 20 flavors of truffles and you can go around through the Haywood Park Hotel Atrium and see our main production kitchen. The best times to see it in full production are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
We do offer tours for small groups (please call ahead to arrange) and we are planning to offer additional tours in the future. The best way to hear about new tours and everything else at The Chocolate Fetish is through our Facebook page or at www.blog.chocolatefetish.com.
RRM: Anything else people should be sure to see when they come to visit The Chocolate Fetish?
EF: Definitely check out our mural that was painted by prolific local artist Joshua Spiceland. It is a visual narrative of the story of how chocolates are made starting with cacao growing on the tree.
The Chocolate Fetish
36 Haywood St., downtown Asheville
(828) 258-2353
www.chocolatefetish.com