Chocobar Cortes
210 Calle San FranciscoSaturday in San Juan was another pretty lazy day. Our plan was to get up, go to the Farmer’s Market and walk around Old San Juan again.
The Farmer’s Market was pretty disappointing. We spent about five minutes there and moved on. There really weren’t many vendors and we didn’t find the street food we were looking for. Turns out, we should have went to the piers. There were several food trucks lined up there but we had no idea.
We started walking Old San Juan again just appreciating the old buildings and brick roads. It was about brunch time and I had accidentally found a place that looked delicious just a few blocks from where we were at.
Chocobar Cortes is a 4th Generation farm-to-bar chocolate manufacturer in Old San Juan. Their shop is Calle San Francisco and the corner with Calle San Justo. The building is a couple of different store fronts with a bar and cafe along street level and an art gallery up a flight of stairs.
The cafe was much busier than I think we expected but it was brunch time. The bar takes up a large portion of the front half of the building but there are a few tables squeezed in as well.
A hostess took us towards the back of the space to a four top squeezed in to a narrow hallway.
The cafe is covered with large, bright murals but it’s the old metal molds they used to make their chocolate bars that really catch your eye.
J and I both started with a lemonade to drink. It was early and hot so we skipped the alcohol for the time being.
I was boring and just got the Classic Lemonade.
J was more adventerous and ordered the Ginger Lemonade which came with a spiced sugar rim on the glass.
The menu has a good mix of both breakfast and lunch items to choose from. I stuck with lunch but had to let J talk me in to getting the most expensive item on the menu.
I picked Chef Churrasco’s Benedicts despite the $26 price tag. That just really seemed like a lot but I do love Benedicts. This one is skirt steak, brioche toast, hollandaise foam and poached eggs served alongside fresh fruit. This is a little bit amazing but the brioche toast was probably the best thing in this dish. It was so good. The skirt steak was tender and juicy and the runny eggs and hollandaise foam had that Benedict taste but I couldn’t get over the bread. I’m not a French Toast fan but I would eat this bread with almost anything.
J picked the Chocolate Grilled Cheese. This time the brioche bread was stuffed with Sharp cheddar cheese and chocolate. The plate was minimal with just triangles of the sandwich dusted with powdered sugar. She was impressed with the brioche but I don’t think quite as much as I was. She just said the chocolate stuffed inside the grilled cheese was unlike anything she has ever had.
Our bill for that part of the meal was a little over $45……because I had to order the $26 item on the menu.
On our way out, we were both distracted by the case of chocolates. There rows upon rows of truffles and we just couldn’t walk out with buying some. J picked out six truffles to take back to the room for later.
We also grabbed a couple of chocolate bars on our way out too. We got a milk chocolate and a white chocolate bar and all of the chocolates were gone long before we hit the airplane to go home.
Chocobar Cortes is a great brunch spot in Old San Juan. We had talked about going there for dinner the night before but they close early and we were kind of being lazy. The Uber back in to Old San Juan was more than worth it once we found this place.
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