ChocoMuseo — Restaurant in Distrito de Cusco

I came here with my girlfriend for a chocolate making class. I really love cooking, and they seemed to have a good class. Our teacher was Jeremy, a kind of quirky Venezuelan guy. He started by talking about the history of chocolate, and then we started processing the chocolate; roasting, grinding, etc. Jeremy then asked for a volunteer for the next process, so I said sure. He proceeded to put isopropanol on my wrist and asked me to squeeze my wrist. He then proceeded to recount how the Mayans used blood as the liquid for chocolate. He then grabbed a knife, cleaned it with isopropanol, and then he grabbed my arm. I, being VERY uncomfortable with the situation, and really rather embarrassed, started feeling a little woozy, and opted to return to my spot. Despite my reaction, he continued and got another student to disinfect his wrist for the demonstration.

By this point, I felt uncomfortable enough to leave the class. I left the room feeling light headed, and headed to the washroom to wash my pale face. I decided to not return to the class after that demonstration as I was embarrassed and kind of angry at the situation. This was about 40 minutes into the class.

My girlfriend continued the class, and finished making her chocolate. After the class, I met back with her to inquire about a refund at the front desk. They were very unapologetic, and refused to give a refund. After pressing further, they offered to refund the cost of the class in chocolate. I then asked the manager about the situation. He agreed to refund me my money, but threw out all of the chocolate I had been making in the class; I can only assume he did this to spite me...

I couldn't really care for the refund, I'm more just upset that that stunt ruined my experience. I was REALLY looking forward to that class, and it was ruined by a stupid joke. So I can't recommend their class, unless you're cool with being put on the spot and being used as a sacrifice for chocolate and the used as the butt end of a bad joke. I also can't recommend this business because of it's poor management. It saddens me that some people are so spiteful...

Don't deny yourself. You like chocolate, and this is where it's at in Cusco. There is the chocolate shop on the street level, but if you go around the corner to the left, there are stairs that lead to the upstairs rooms where the museum is and the classes are held.

We came to this location before we even booked Machu Picchu. Don't judge us. We were going to be in Cusco at least a few weeks so we didn't have to rush booking everything, and this was an easy place to start.

Looking around the shop and museo takes about a half hour, but the winner here was the chocolate making class. We signed up the day before and did a mid morning class which takes you through the process from bean to bar.

Our chocolatier was great fun and awesome with kids (there were three

We heard great things about the bean to bar workshop so headed in this afternoon to do it. We were disappointed. We expected some history on chocolate, maybe trying samples of some different chocolate etc and making our own bar. What we got was over 2 hours of the lady taking the class making jokes about domestic violence and killing 'babies', pretending to slit a child's wrists, disappearing from the room randomly, playing music on her phone and making us sing and dance. In between this we did go through the process of cooking beans, grinding them and making caco tea and hot chocolate the way the mayans did however it was very drawn out and most people lost interest half way through and were playing on their phones. The workshop was supposed to go for 2 hours at the 1 hour 57 mark we finally got around to making our chocolate bars but were rushed through as they wanted to set up for the next class. Maybe with a different instructor we would have had the wonderful experience that other reviewers seem...