Kate Weiser Chocolate Has a New Wine and Dessert Menu. Yes, Please

The Trinity Groves location of Kate Weiser Chocolate now offers more than just snowman hot chocolate kits during the holidays and signature chocolate bonbons. The shop is now a dessert and wine bar, adding a new menu with several dessert options and a somewhat limited wine selection.

After a mediocre dinner at a Trinity Groves restaurant with a somewhat offensive name that shall remain… nameless, we decided to drop in and check it out, partly out of curiosity and partly to escape the somewhat overpowering heat that was still engulfing us even as it approached 9 p.m.
All the usual bonbons, chocolates, macarons and cookies are available, along with the new dessert menu: frozen treats and ooey-gooey desserts. The frozen fare includes a few ice pops such as café mocha cream and frozen cheesecake. The pops will run you $8, the cheesecake $12. The gooey stuff includes various sundae-type dishes as well as fondue for two.

We were focusing on the ooey-gooey stuff when a helpful staff member offered to help us decide. She raved about the epic banana split, waxing poetic about the multiple textures of crunch and smooth, and was glowing in her recommendation of the sweet waffles. It’s hard to resist such salesmanship; we’re only human. We ordered both.

Six wines by the glass are available, ranging from $8 to $15 a pour: three red (Meiomi blend, Erath pinot noir, Twenty Acres cabernet sauvignon), two white (Simi sauvignon blanc, Twenty Acres chardonnay) and a rosé (Ruffino prosecco), which is not extensive but perfectly adequate given the dessert menu. We wanted a red and a white, so went full 40 acres and got the cab and the chardonnay, both from Twenty Acres.
While we waited the server brought us a couple of chocolate bonbons that were both complimentary and complementary, which is not easy to write because of spellcheck but fun to say nonetheless. They were free; the strawberry basil bonbon was supposed to go with the chardonnay and the hazelnut latte bite with the cab. Or maybe it was the other way around — free stuff is always exciting and we kind of stopped listening. Both were good, although one of us doesn’t think basil belongs with chocolate. Everyone has their own cross to bear.
The wine was fine and did in fact go well with the recommended gratis bonbons. It’s served in a plastic stemless glass making it easier to take the in-store signage’s advice to “sip anywhere in Trinity Groves.” Maybe we’ll take them up on it once temps dip below 110.

The epic banana split really was a feast of taste and texture: dark chocolate, strawberry and cookie butter ice cream surrounded by caramelized bananas, almonds, brownie bites, strawberries and whipped cream with a cherry on top, all served in a container about 8 inches long. Just enough.
The sweet waffles were a mélange of pieces of Belgian liège waffles, fresh pineapples, bananas and strawberries, with salted caramel, cookie butter crémeux and Biscoff waffle ice cream. It was all very decadent and delightful, but the liège waffles were perhaps a bit wanting in the pearl sugar area. The Biscoff ice cream, on the other hand, perfectly captured the flavor of that cookie so popular on cross-continental airplane trips as of late.

This is not a bad spot to stop in after dinner for a glass of wine and dessert. An expanded wine selection would make it even better. Maybe someday I’ll even stop calling it “Kate Winslet.”

3011 Gulden Lane, No. 115 (Trinity Groves); Dessert hours: Tuesday – Thursday, 1–9 p.m.; Friday – Saturday, 1–10 p.m.; Sunday, noon – 6 p.m.