Mast Brothers is an American artisanal chocolate company headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The company was founded in 2007 by brothers Rick and Michael Mast, who are from Primghar, Iowa and who have been described as having "magnificent Civil War-era beards". Mast Brothers, according to Vanity Fair, are "widely credited for introducing artisanal chocolate to mainstream American culture" and to have been instrumental in popularizing the bean-to-bar movement in America, but has faced criticism for their lack of involvement in the artisanal chocolate business community, as well as allegations they used third-party chocolate in their early products.
The building was located in Williamsburg. Encompassing 3,000 square feet, the Minimalist-style chocolate shop was located inside a building that once served as a spice factory and today houses various small companies. The store is now closed.
London
Mast Brothers opened London's first commercial bean-to-bar chocolate factory which has since closed on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, an East London neighborhood, welcoming visitors into a multi-use space where they can see the chocolate production process, buy chocolate bars and other treats, and even drink their chocolate. As of early 2018, Mast Brothers had permanently shuttered their London retail location.
Los Angeles
Mast Brothers opened the first bean-to-bar chocolate factory in Los Angeles, California in May 2016. The chocolate factory is located in a 6,000 square foot warehouse in the Arts District. In early 2018, the company announced the closure of this retail space, along with their London location.
Products
Mast Brothers currently offers 12 varieties of chocolate bars with their 2016 Collection which launched during the London Design Festival. The 2016 Collection consists of six dark chocolate bars and six milk chocolate bars. The bars are available in three sizes. A 70-gram bar of Mast Brothers chocolate typically sells for $9 from the Mast Brothers' Brooklyn flagship location and for $10 at hundreds of secondary retailers. The company has gained attention both for the quality of its packaging design as well as for its chocolate, including praise from noted French Laundry chef Thomas Keller. In addition, Mast Brothers makes a variety of chocolate confections at both their Brooklyn and London locations, and they offer a hot chocolate made by steaming shaved chocolate with milk, a brewed hot chocolate using a siphon, and a chocolate beer that is brewed in-house with roasted cacao, cane sugar and water before being carbonated with nitrogen. Chocolate beer is currently available at their Brooklyn and London locations.
"Mast Brothers: A Family Cookbook" was published in October 2013 by Little, Brown & Company. The book was the winner of the 2014 IACP Award for single subject and a 2014 James Beard award finalist for photography.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in May 2011, Mast Brothers chartered the three-masted Black Seal, a 70-foot schooner built over 25 years by Captain Eric Loftfield, to sail from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to the Dominican Republic in order to pick up 20 tons of cocoa beans. On June 14, 2011 the Black Seal arrived at the Red Hook waterfront in Brooklyn where a group of deckhands and makers of artisanal chocolate unloaded the cocoa beans from the schooner. It was the first time a sailing ship had unloaded commercial cargo in New York since 1939, according to one city official.
Controversy
In March 2015, the online magazineSlate published a critical piece about Mast Brothers, condemning their lack of involvement in the artisanal chocolate business community, and alleging that a few boutique chocolate retailers avoid carrying their products. The brothers faced controversy again in late 2015 when a Dallas-based food blogger, Scott Craig, raised questions about whether the brothers had, during their first years of operation, melted down chocolate from another high-end French supplier, Valrhona, mixing it with their own ingredients, and whether they had always been an in-house "bean to bar" operation as they claimed. Mast Brothers acknowledged it used some couverture in addition to making their own chocolate in its early experimentations but said that the practice had ended in 2009, and that none of their early products had ever been misrepresented as "bean to bar" offerings.
