Summer bodies be damned, here's Blue Stripes: an innovative cacao concept shop full of things you'll want to eat so badly you won't give a single hoot about the season, now open in Union Square.
Things like chocolate pizza topped with toasted marshmallows, nutella shakes with hazelnut cream and white truffle matcha drinks.
Things that quite obviously came from the brain of Oded Brenner: the "bald man" and Max Brenner founder, who's just now launching his next venture after a five-year hiatus. The man loves his chocolate.
And, in essence, this place is an attractive grab-and-go cacao cafe to try something outlandish and delicious, then be on your merry way. Their goal here was to explore the possibilities of cacao: using every part of the pod, innovating on the chocolatier front, you get the point.
If you're down for some chocolate-forward experimentation, try a Krembo—that's a delightful marshmallow foam made of vanilla bean, ganache and strawberry, piped on a crunchy cookie hiding a layer of cream. There are also Turkish sweet pepper-flavored raw cacao bars and "chocolate clouds"—like mousse, but lighter, and dispensed from a tap.
Please, don't enter this slideshow hungry.