I live in Kansas City, a beautifully treed, food-frenzied and cultured metropolis that has more boulevards than Paris and more working fountains—212 and counting—than any city but Rome. To the outside world, we have rivers of barbecue sauce dissecting the 400 square-plus miles on either side of the gentle ribbon of road separating Missouri and Kansas. Everyone has their favorite barbecue joint in this ‘cue-crazy town, and you won’t meet a soul afraid to debate their favorite.
Bryant’s, Danny Edward’s, Gates, Hayward’s, Jack Stack, LC’s, Oklahoma Joe’s…the list goes on of purveyors who ply their smoked delights in this sprawling Heartland city to palates that are as well-tuned as any sommelier worth their swirl, sniff, sip and spit. Visiting celebrities, NFL teams, opera singers and rock stars are greeted with the keys to the city and plates of pulled pork, burnt ends and mahogany-glazed chicken, with fries and beans on the side.
Pass the wet naps, please.
But if we have barbecue sauce running through our veins here in Kansas City, then chocolate is undoubtedly melting in our mouths. And there’s one man who helped put KC on the artisan, handcrafted chocolate map—Christopher Elbow.
An unassuming, 30-something bespectacled guy with an endearingly crooked smile who is one of the nation’s top award-winning confectioners, Christopher has created a city of chocoholics craving his adventurous approach to sweet treats. Giving a Christopher Elbow creamy white signature box wrapped with a silky, cocoa-colored bow is akin to giving the Tiffany Blue Box—except you can eat the jewels inside the former.
Like many genius chefs, Christopher stumbled upon his chosen craft. A budding cook at 10 years old, he worked in kitchens in his late teens and early 20s, narrowing down his culinary focus from savory foods to pastries to desserts and finally to his true love—chocolate.
“I was working at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at the Paris in Vegas,” says Christopher, “watching the pastry chef make tiny molded chocolates night after night. It was fascinating, because I always thought they were machine made.”
Though Christopher didn’t have the opportunity to make any of the miniature, edible works of art that captured his fancy in Las Vegas, it was during a prodigious star turn at Kansas City’s acclaimed The American Restaurant that he started spinning his Willy Wonka-like magic. Satiated diners were presented with plates of petit fours post-dessert, petite macarons and chocolates made by the aspiring prince of chocolat.
And when customer after customer inquired about buying his chocolates, Christopher Elbow realized his passion. He started producing his stunningly sumptuous bonbons for newly minted wholesale accounts in a 400-square-foot space above a fragrant Mediterranean restaurant on Kansas City’s Southwest Boulevard. Eight months later, he hung a shingle down the street in the rear of a high-end furniture store.
Just like that baseball field in Iowa, Christopher discovered overnight that if you build it, they will come. Word spread like chocolate wildfire throughout the city that something special was going on, tucked in the back of High Cotton. People stopped in to buy hostess, holiday and for-no-particular occasion gifts of Elbow chocolates, squirreling away a piece or two for themselves.
Christopher’s blending of unusual flavors with some of the world’s best dark chocolate sparked a cult following, and he soon opened a gleaming boutique space in the Kansas City Crossroads Arts District where patrons purchase steaming mugs of his thick and decadent drinking chocolate, cups of locally roasted coffee and of course, chocolate.
From November through April, Christopher and the 10 chocolate evangelists who work in the Elbow production kitchen produce more than 50,000 truffles, caramels and chocolates a week. Boxes are shipped across the country, and Christopher Elbow is sold in discerning stores nationwide, including Dean & DeLuca. It’s a mini chocolate revolution, with sweet consequences.
Christopher’s inspiration springs from prolific travels—meandering through exotic markets, eating meals in oceanside villages, combing through food halls and gourmet emporiums. Persia, an impossibly sinful and symphonic pop of Elbow chocolate, was devised following forkfuls of honey-drenched baklava in Greece. Bananas Curry represents Christopher’s love of Asian food with some Bananas Foster thrown in, finished with a dash of curry.
It works. All of his chocolates do. Caramel Apple, Passion Fruit, Macadamia Praline, Mango Ginger. They intrigue, satisfy, tease and tickle the palate. It’s easy to imagine Christopher in one of those kids’ bounce houses, giddily jumping from flavor to flavor, spice to spice, until the absolutely dynamic combination tumbles together.
A food aficionado for sure—one of his personal passions is pizza-making and he seeks out bona fide Mexican cuisine—Christopher’s mind frequently shifts into overdrive, conjuring up new, cool things to do with chocolate. Lucky for us, because we’re guaranteed scintillating, sexy chocolates—whether they come in four, six or nine-piece collections (and if you’ve been very, very good—the granddaddy 42-piece whopper).
If you’re Jenifer Elbow, Christopher’s wife, you won’t be receiving chocolates on Valentine’s Day—“I couldn’t get off that easy,” he chuckles. But if you’re the rest of us, you can only cross your fingers for one of those white boxes with the mocha-colored ribbon, a treasure trove of chocolate heaven.
If you think I’m biased about Christopher Elbow’s contribution to the chocolate world, you’re right. Ask me which KC barbecue is my favorite, and I’ll give you my opinion on that, too.
-Kimberly Winter Stern
Overland Park, Kan.-based freelance writer Kimberly Winter Stern writes travel, food, lifestyle and design. Also known as the gregarious and cuisine-informed Kim Dishes, listeners tune in weekly for her on-the-road segments on “LIVE! From Jasper’s Kitchen,” a popular Kansas City radio food show. Prolific in eating, writing and discovering, this foodie satisfies an innate desire to sample the world’s gastronomic rainbow by meeting food artisans and trendsetters, gaining insight into the culinary points-of-view of everyone from cheese makers, chocolatiers and chefs who set their city’s locavore pace to farmers who are passionate producers. Stern is a sought-after writer, with work appearing in Better Homes and Gardens, Unity, KANSAS! Magazine, 435 South magazine, KC Homes & Gardens, Generation Boom, Shawnee Magazine, KC Magazine, KC Home Design, KC Business and Midwest CEO. Stern is a national blogger for the Dean & DeLuca Gourmet Food Blog where she cooks, styles, shoots and writes about life and cooking … and loves to lick the bowl clean. This writer may have been given product and/or other compensation from Dean & DeLuca for this post.
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Comments ( 6 )
Great article!! Chocolates sound wonderful.
Farmgirl Gourmet added these pithy words on Feb 14 12 at 5:22 pm Christopher's product is truly sublime. Unfortunately, I didn't get a box for Valentine's Day, so I'll go to Dean & DeLuca this weekend and splurge. I respect Christopher's approach to producing a very pure product.
kimberly stern added these pithy words on Feb 15 12 at 8:51 am I must say that has been a pure pleasure to read – enticing, well written, thoroughly inviting the reader into an unknown aspect of one of the finest chocolate confections the Lord has blessed us with. I do not and have not subscribed to someone's blog before, but yours is one I will add to my list of must reads. Thank you!
Michele added these pithy words on Feb 15 12 at 10:02 pm christopher elbow are to die for sooo fab
josephine mirabile added these pithy words on Feb 16 12 at 9:33 pm Hi, Michele,
Thank you so much! You can go back in the Dean & DeLuca archives to read more of my posts…they're little stories about food, memories of food, artisans who make food…and did I say food? Love Christopher Elbow!
kimberly Stern added these pithy words on Feb 28 12 at 9:58 pm Mrs. Mirabile…they are DIVINE!!!! Thanks for reading!!!!
Kimberly Stern added these pithy words on Feb 28 12 at 9:59 pm 
