Opening its doors in the same block as retailers of purple soft ice cream, mochi donuts and canned lattes with photos of K-Pop stars on them, ROYCE’ Chocolate on Bellaire Boulevard in Chinatown offers a distinctive approach to sweets.
No display clearly indicates what’s for sale. And even inside the tiny, lab-like boutique, visitors can’t immediately see the store’s signature blocks of ganache or its grass-green matcha almonds. Instead, they might glimpse a square of chocolate under a glass case at the back, in a slim envelope tucked into a decorative box. For a truly good look at a ROYCE’ chocolate, they’ll need to stare at a photo.
So how is this newly opened business busily selling chocolates all the way until closing?
One reason, explains Lucia Santiago, the company’s U.S. general manager, is that although ROYCE’ chocolates are new in Houston, they’ve been a delicacy in Japan since the store opened in 1983. Visitors from Houston, she said, have been shopping at the original ROYCE’ shops in Hokkaido and Tokyo — and asking the company to come to Texas — for decades. In the interim, they’ve been buying ROYCE’ chocolates online and creating new devotees by presenting them as gifts.
For those tasting a ROYCE’ chocolate for the first time, a little explanation is needed. Created with ardent attention to detail, the chocolates are in many ways distinctively Japanese. Nearly 40 years after launching on the verdant northern island of Hokkaido, ROYCE’ still sources almost all its ingredients, except for cacao, on the island. It insists on producing all its chocolates there, too, before shipping them around Asia and to California, Washington, Nevada and now Texas.
Known for its dairy cattle, Hokkaido produces all of ROYCE’ cream and butter, which the company contends is the secret of its best-known confection, nama chocolate ($18 per box).
Deceptively plain looking, these scored squares of milk, white or dark chocolate blend subtle flavorings such as cocoa and fresh cream. The result is a meltingly rich confection, similar to a flat truffle or a solid mousse, that must be refrigerated to preserve the Hokkaido cream.
Velvet is not the only ROYCE texture. For chocolate lovers who prefer a bit of crackle, the company also makes creamy-white potato chips dipped in dark or cheese-infused white chocolate, and bonbons about the dimensions of a cherry cordial, composed of a buttery mix of cocoa, cornflakes, potato chips and cookie bits.
In keeping with its Japanese roots, and to indulge consumers looking to add antioxidants to their chocolate consumption, the store also sells chocolate confections flavored with matcha, a powder made of green tea leaves.
My favorite was a pale green wafer much like a high-end Kit Kat, that alternated delicate crispy layers with matcha-flavored white chocolate ($17 for 12 pieces). Like all other chocolates at the store, it’s packaged meticulously, in a small, silky green envelope.
This Japanese aesthetic is a big part of ROYCE’s appeal for American customers, manager Santiago says.
In contrast to our more maximalist American approach to sweets, she points out — one that leads us to compare chocolate desserts to medical events, volcanic eruptions or sins — ROYCE’ designs chocolates to be savored slowly and thoughtfully, and only after first appreciating the crisp, slim box and whispery plastic envelope that enfolds every piece.
Although mass-produced, this packaging echoes a Japanese tradition of making containers for everyday things that are lovely, thoughtfully made, and visually enhances the food they carry inside.
“I think we have something special to offer,” she says. “What I love about Japanese culture is that everything is in moderation, and with Japanese chocolate and desserts, you often only need a few bites. Japanese craftspeople also create with an eye to perfection — they’re very detail-oriented, very conscious of the highest standards of quality. At ROYCE’, that includes the ingredients, the chocolate technique, and the packaging.”
In Houston, this careful packaging includes the store itself: bright, intriguing and designed for Asiatown pedestrians to savor what’s within.
Royce’ Houston
9798 Bellaire Boulevard, Suite M
Houston, TX 77036
