Vosges Haut-Chocolat
Rasta isn’t exactly the vibe you get at the recently expanded Vosges boutique in the heart of Lincoln Park. For sale alongside the chocolate bars and truffles are Tibetan prayer wheels, Hindu statuettes, and Indian oil lamps. The walls are a modish bright white, accented by pedestal display cases and heavy curtains in shades of purple. (“I was studying the symbolism of colors and found purple to be the most spiritual color,” Markoff says. Her truffles come in purple boxes as well.) In the small middle room that opens onto an ice cream bar offering four Vosges flavors are items like yoga mats, leather jackets, and candles. It’s here that you’ll find Marley’s likeness, on a $40 Vosges T-shirt silk-screened with the motto one love, one chocolate.
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In 1997 Markoff sold some of her first truffles to Neiman Marcus in Dallas, but things really started to click the next year when she moved to Chicago. With an old friend who has since left the company, she first set up a retail location in Bucktown, making and packaging the chocolates in her apartment–this time one with a good-size kitchen. When Vosges moved to the Nordstrom building in 2000, chocolate production moved to the burbs. The company now has five locations–three in Chicago and one each in Vegas and New York–and takes in $6 million a year.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Jim Newberry.
