The wine was red and the chocolate dark, as promised, at Pure Dark's specialty chocolate "shoppe" in the West Village (Bleeker at W 10) last night. The evening was hosted by Hamptons writer, relationship columnist, and all around glam-about-town Heather Buchanan. Ms. Buchanan brought her troupe of writers in waiting, let's call them the chickliteers, to share their stories "from the battlefield of love." It is a scientific fact that nothing goes with heartache quite like chocolate and red wine, and these ladies proved it—though the store could have kept pouring the wine during the four readers. This would have gone a long way toward winning over the overflowing crowd. In the modern-ADD world people tend to get restless without either commercial breaks or copious amounts of alcohol to sedate them.
The space is huge (especially for a chocolate shop) and lends itself to this sort of writers salon event, and while the fake cacao trees are fun, the chain-mall vibe is a bit much. The Mars-owned store may be a budding chain in the making, with the next planned stop being Cleveland, Ohio. Think of a cross between a Hershey store, the Rain Forest Cafe and Starbucks, and you're almost there.
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