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Sweet Spot: Saved by the gelato

Main Street’s Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France lives on

This summer, gelato saved Anne-Genevieve Poitras’s business. Scoop by scoop, she served customers from between the bars of her shop window. “It was a gorgeous summer,” she says, “so I was scooping gelato every day. Thank God for that.”
In mid-June, a fire started at the back of Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France (198 East 21st Ave). Fortunately, no one was hurt, though the 14 residential tenants on the second level had to find new accommodation. There was no fire or water damage to the mostly wooden property, but smoke damaged all of Poitras’s inventory.
“I had to start from scratch. Zero inventory. Empty store,” she says in her Quebecois accent.
Hence the gelato, which was half of Poitras’s focus in culinary school. Originally from Montreal, she studied pastry and baking at the Institut du Tourisme et d’Hôtellerie du Québec,  a well-respected hospitality school. When it came time to specialize, she chose chocolate and ice cream. Though trained in sweets, she also spent time on the savoury side, notably working at Toque! with Normand Laprise.
Poitras moved to Vancouver in 2006, wanting to improve her English. In 2009, she opened Chocolaterie de la Nouvelle France. “I felt like there was a need for a French chocolate shop because when I arrived, I couldn’t find any,” she says.
She also couldn’t find a supplier of Cacao Barry chocolate, which she had used in Montreal. It took three months of cajoling and negotiating to get a reliable supply. Today, several Vancouver chocolatiers use Cacao Barry — and arguably, they have Poitras to thank for its availability.
But she’s quiet about those accomplishments, preferring to put her energy into the shop. From the trompe l’oeil mural outside to the perfectly spherical truffles in wide-bellied glass jars, there is a deceptive simplicity to Poitras’s work.
Take, for instance, her chocolate squares. They’re small squares of chocolate, each dusted with something different: lavender, chili peppers, espresso beans, etc.

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But look closely and you’ll notice that each one features a different single-origin chocolate, each chosen for its distinct flavour profile that complements the garnish. These are not haphazard pairings; these are the work of someone with a deep respect for chocolate. And one of them, the milk chocolate square studded with almond, fleur de sel and coconut, won a silver medal in the 2012 Canadian competition of the International Chocolate Awards (disclosure: I’m the Canadian partner for the awards).
The caramels are some of the best in the city and come in chocolate, vanilla and sea salt; the drinking chocolate is decadent without being over the top. Rounding out the collection are sauces, including salted caramel and hazelnut-chocolate, which Poitras will gleefully serve to you on top of a Liege waffle (made by Damien’s Belgian Waffles in Steveston).
Poitras re-opened on Sept. 27 and is glad to be back in business, especially since she has a new parklet out front. It opened in June, just four days before the fire.
“It’s a public space,” she says. “Being from Montreal, I love public spaces. They bring something to the architecture of the city.”
It was a year-long project, and a major effort for Poitras. “I thought they set the parklet on fire,” she says, with relief in her voice.
After the fire, she questioned whether to restart the business. “Clients were grabbing my hand through the window and saying, ‘It’s going to be okay,’ and ‘We can’t wait to see you inside,’” she says. “I imagined not seeing them and I was not going to have it. Without them, [the reopening] would not have happened.”

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