S.F.'s newest luxury chocolate outfit comes from a former Tartine pastry chef
A celestial take on gourmet chocolate has arrived in San Francisco. Moon Kids Chocolate, a popup founded by a former Tartine Bakery pastry chef, officially opens on Tuesday.
Michael Tabatabai's new popup sells bonbons exclusively online for home delivery in San Francisco. The ordering for a drop goes live each Tuesday at noon, and every week features a new menu of flavors. Only 30 boxes are available at a time.
Priced at $48 for 12 bonbons, Moon Kids is entering an expanding luxury chocolate market in San Francisco that has amped up over the last year, thanks to acclaimed pastry chefs striking out on their own. Topogato, cofounded by the former pastry chef of Liholiho Yacht Club, opened a storefront in the Richmond District last month selling stunning, creative confections. And Stay Sweet, founded by former Saison pastry chef Mark Lieue, opened online in December and hosts popups around the city.
For Moon Kids, Tabatabai adds a fresh, galactic spin: Each bonbon replicates the vibrant colors and swirls of a planet in outer space. Some feature flecks of yellow and white to look like stars. The secret to this look? A few tools, some colored cocoa butter and a lot of patience.
'It's a one-man, one-person show,' said Tabatabai, who is working out of Schlok's Bagels and Lox. 'It's a process that takes time.'
After melting and cooling Guittard chocolate by hand, adding ganache to the middle and sealing the bonbon with another layer of tempered chocolate, he uses an airbrush and sponge to transform the brown bonbons into miniature celestial bodies. In all, it takes Tabatabai around three days to produce the weekly batch.
To decide the flavors each week, Tabatabai considers what's going on in the food world and in the city as a whole. After a visit to Garden Creamery in San Francisco's Mission District, where he tried salty kaya ice cream, Tabatabai was inspired to create a banana salted kaya bonbon — a take on a sweet coconut jam from Southeast Asia. Other flavors include satsuma matcha, a citrusy spin on the Japanese green tea, and lychee raspberry.
In addition to crafting the bonbons by himself, Tabatabai hand-delivers the boxes to customers on Saturdays; insulated packages keep the bonbons fresh for up to 12 hours. At this phase of the business, the quality of the product is the top priority, he said.
Before launching Moon Kids, Tabatabai worked as the executive pastry chef at San Francisco's famed Tartine Bakery for nearly four years. But his interest in chocolate and other sweet treats bloomed over the candy cart at Masa's Restaurant; he worked at the Michelin-starred French restaurant for two years before it closed in 2013.
Tabatabai envisions Moon Kid becoming a full-service shop that sells chocolate bars, other confections and soft serve ice cream in addition to his bonbons — but in the meantime, he's enjoying creating all on his own.
'I just wanted to do something fun that I'm passionate about,' Tabatabai said, 'and bonbons have always been one of those things.'
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