Imagine that you’re sitting in a sun-splashed courtyard — surrounded by roses and ferns — with an oversized umbrella offering cooling relief on a warm spring day.
You’ve just taken a bite of an enormous peppermint patty, and the taste of rich dark chocolate is now giving way to the creaminess of the mint filling, a texture unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. What could possibly make this moment any more memorable you wonder, as you reach for a gelato with a double shot of espresso, and take your first sip.
Oh!
Well you don’t have to imagine this gift to your taste buds. Simply stop by LibbyBeans in Frenchtown, N.J. — acclaimed as the best candy store in Hunterdon County for the second straight year. And for good reason.
Located at 43 Bridge St. — next door to Blue Raven’s Rock Art Revival — LibbyBeans captivates your senses before you even taste one of the 60 handmade chocolate confections beckoning you from the glass display cases.
Favors of gelato and sorbet border the silver espresso and hot chocolate machines at the back, and lead to the garden — a respite that seats no more than 10 at a time.
The owner is Libby Ballantine, who ended up in Frenchtown by way of Portsmouth, N.H., where she learned at an early age the right way to make brownies with chocolate and the perfect Sicilian pasta sauce.
“Mom was an incredible baker and cook,” Libby recalls, “and she steered us toward a Mediterranean diet even before it became fashionable. My stepfather was a short-order cook and more of a meat and potatoes guy. But there was only one cook in my mother’s kitchen.”
Libby foreshadowed her career as a chocolatier quite appropriately, as a candy striper — working in a hospital cafe making assorted salads and meals for patients at the age of 12.
In her late 20s, she went on to form a small cafe in a health food store just across the border in Kittery, Maine, called Jezebel’s Baking Company. The name was an ode to her mother. “She used to call me Jezebel because, well, I was a naughty little girl.”
After moving from the area and spending years in Florida, Libby was drawn to Frenchtown by her brother, Chris Robinson, who had created a gourmet food shop specializing in cheese, charcuterie, and fine balsamic vinegars and oils. Much like LibbyBeans, Gourmand Epicerie has a decided European feel to it. “I suppose you could say that he took the savory side of the family,” Libby says, “and I took the sweet side.”
Libby fell in love with Frenchtown, but the riverside town already had a candy store called Minette’s, and it was not for sale. But following a meeting between Libby, Chris and Minette Reading during which Libby described her dream of expanding it into a candy store with a coffee bar, gelato and courtyard, the sale was accomplished, and on January 4, 2019, Libby opened her rather heavy front door.
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