Field Trip: Li-Lac Chocolates

If pressed, most New Yorkers who relocate to Southern California will admit that they miss the four seasons. This year, I learned that spending January in the land of endless summer has a lot to recommend it. As I remarked on the day of, I don’t recall the last time I had a sunny day for my birthday. But now I’m back in the northeast, where winter’s worst has been weathered, and we’re halfway to spring. I find myself edging, groundhoglike, out of the burrow of my east coast urban home, and onto the walking streets that define the New York experience just as surely as the freeway defines LA.

Rereading last autumn’s column about a stroll through Greenwich Village reminds me that my New York is centered in the Village and that the Village is at its most glorious on a crisp autumn day. But then that’s true of the northeast in general, as ochre images of cider mills and maple trees fill the storybook pages of our imagination before winter blasts us back to black and gray reality. Readers of Urban Home already understand that autumn is my favorite season, and I am not certain if I will be able to stay away from New York City when that time rolls around this year.

Of course, though we’re on the way to spring we haven’t actually gotten there, and as I reestablish my linkage with my east coast urban home, it becomes less about comparing the two locations and more about appreciating each one’s special qualities. You’ve heard the phrase “comparing apples and oranges."  How about comparing the Big Apple to the Big Orange?

Over the course of the winter, Urban Home Blog focused on growth, expansion, moves, changes, and California. It’s always important to recognize our own roots, and after a commitment to move forward with the acknowledgements of looking back, we started the year with a good breakfast from my grandmother’s Oklahoma kitchen. We inaugurated the first in a series of articles about the necessary skill of cooking for one. We even had some fun with the irony of the Manhattan on the rocks as LA's cocktail of standard. And, as Valentine’s Day dawned – which John and I spent, for the first time in our twenty years together, apart – we indulged in the sweet, inspiring history of that great Los Angeles institution, See’s Candies.

Back on our Greenwich Village stroll, a cobblestone apex typical of the West Village street grid finds us facing Li-Lac Chocolates. This windowed store overlooks the stretch of Federal homes that house a bed and breakfast, a charming wine store, and the compass point of the Tavern on Jane on one side, with the Corner Bistro and an authentic Village coffee house around the corner. This is a relatively new location for Li-Lac. Vintage Villagers remember Li-Lac's quainter accommodations on Christopher Street. Li-Lac had been in that location since 1923, when a Greek immigrant opened the doors to a tiny room devoted to selling chocolates in the front and hand-dipping them in the back.

George Demetrious had studied the art of chocolate in France. His intention in opening the Christopher Street location was to honor the art by preparing and packaging his chocolates in the tradition of a chocolatier. Chocolate and fillings were prepared in large copper kettles. The chocolate was tempered on chilled marble tabletops. Each candy was hand-dipped and finished with a swirled "signature" to identify the filling. Though Mr. Demetrious died in 1972, his recipes and techniques are still used for Li-Lac's chocolates today.

Li-Lac has been a true artisan's business since its inception. Ownership has passed through a line of Li-Lac devotees, both employee and customer. Mr. Demetrious bequeathed the legacy of Li-Lac to an employee named Marguerite Watt, who in a plot device worthy of Roald Dahl was hand-chosen by the chocolatier to succeed him. She inherited the equipment, recipes, and lease on the increasingly gentrifying Christopher Street.  She ran Li-Lac with fidelity to Mr. Demetrious' vision until her retirement. At that time, she sold the business to a devoted customer who lived around the corner from the Christopher Street shop. As a caterer, he often stopped by for bulk orders for his own business, and as he and Marguerite got to know each other, she began to feel that his would be the most capable hands to which she could trust the Li-Lac legacy.

Mr. Demetrious' faith in Marguerite was well-earned, for that was the correct judgment on her part. After Marguerite sold Li-Lac to him, Edward Bond became a significant contributor to the Li-Lac story. Anyone who visits Li-Lac today remarks upon the impressive selection of molded chocolates. That is a legacy of Ed Bond, who acquired the molds with a vision to add exemplary molded chocolates to the hand-dipped lines. Every New Yorker who orders a chocolate Easter bunny, Halloween scarecrow, Thanksgiving turkey, or Christmas tree from Li-Lac has Mr. Bond's vision to thank for that tradition. Ed even designed the flowered packaging still in use today.

Further conservators of the Li-Lac legacy have included Ed's sister Martha, the Merritt family and its current owner, a former advertising executive. Each owner of Li-Lac chocolates inherits a Village institution. A visit to Li-Lac is as much a part of Village living as McNulty's, the Halloween parade, or the Strand. Li-Lac is one of the few candy stores in town where you can buy a single piece of candy, and when you do, you are buying a piece made in the mode of its predecessors. George Demetrious brought more than a reverence for the art of chocolate to that storefront on Christopher Street. He opened the doors to a chapter of Greenwich Village history. Li-Lac has been around long enough to witness the Village transform from an epicenter of immigrant culture through beats, hippies and Pride to gentrification. Every sweet bite contains the taste of history.