Chocolatier Thierry Mulhaupt

Bean-to-bar tablets, bonbons and entremets fill the cases at Maison Mulhaupt’s Colmar boutique, the Alsatian address of pâtissier chocolatier Thierry Mulhaupt, who founded the house in 1991. In the old town it works less as a café pause than as a focused stop for pastry, chocolate, gourmand drinks and seasonal gifts.

Cacao first, pastry close behind

The identity starts with cacao. The maison works to a bean-to-bar model, following the cocoa from sourcing to finished tablet with traceability and sustainability in view. That commitment carries into Cacao For Good, its project sponsoring cacao trees in Colombia. Thierry Mulhaupt’s own profile reaches past the counter: chocolatier, artist and recipe author, with paintings, books and teaching attached to the brand.

Colmar is one point in a wider Alsace and international network that takes in the Strasbourg boutiques, Vendenheim, Chantilly and Luxembourg. Recognition includes the Trophée Or for Transition Énergétique in 2025 and a Tablette Or et Coup de Coeur in the Guide des Croqueurs de Chocolat 2026. The shelves hold chocolate tablets, bonbons, entremets, cakes, petits fours, confiseries and gifts rather than restaurant plates.

A boutique counter, not a café to settle into

Read the shop as a boutique à emporter with a counter-based rhythm. Customers choose pastries, chocolates, ice creams, cakes, bean-to-bar tablets, pains d’épices, jams or gifts and carry them out, or have them sent. Gourmand drinks are served, but this is not a specialty coffee bar or a tea house, and the case is what decides the visit.

The same address teaches. Its laboratory runs pastry classes on themes such as tarts, viennoiseries, chocolates and macarons; sessions last three hours and participants leave with what they have made. That side clarifies the boutique’s role: not only a display case for finished sweets, but part of the maison’s production and teaching culture.

Let the counter lead

The range runs to entremets, glaces, cakes, cakes qui voyagent, viennoiseries, petits fours, tablettes bean-to-bar, chocolats, pains d’épices, confiseries, confitures and cadeaux. Savoury items exist, but the pull is sweet: layered desserts, travel cakes, chocolate work, ice creams and boxed gifts to carry through the old town.

Seasonality decides the rest. New collections arrive through the year and summer brings the glaces, while the cartes du moment organise the current desserts, chocolates and gift choices. The house also publishes recipe books and technique videos, its tours de main, which connect what sits in the case to the craft vocabulary behind it. On any given day the best buy might be an entremets, a box of chocolates, or a bean-to-bar tablet.