ALL summer and fall, as candidates battled across the country, a different campaign was being waged in the restaurant kitchens of New York.
The chief strategist was not a politician, but rather a middleman: John Magazino. In recent months, he has presented samples of a new high-end chocolate called Tcho to 40 or 50 of the city’s premier pastry chefs.
He’s offered them a taste. Discussed cost and melting points. Proffered bulk samples. And some chefs listened. Others were wholly uninterested, or forgot that they’d ever tried it. “And some chefs were so busy they didn’t have the time to taste it,” he said.
At stake is a toehold in the lucrative American market for millions of pounds of gastronomic chocolate, a sumptuous food-service product that is used by pastry chefs and bakers in white-table restaurants and by fine chocolatiers.
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