Carmel’s new Cocoa Spa uses chocolate to eat and… heal.

Maren Muter of Big Sur remembers the first time she tried chocolate, in exacting detail, even though she was just two and a half: a walk from an Oregon beach into the verdant woods, a yellow slicker repelling the rain, a stop by the local market, happy puddle stomping, singing in the rain, the rustle of a brown bag and the outstretched hand of her adopted father offering her something.

“He said, ‘Try this,’ and I did,” she says, “I saw ladybugs and fireflies and everyone was dancing and I knew chocolate was the basis of all that was true and good. ”

That memory would hold her together when things worsened. When her dad got abusive, she would hide under the bed and think about that first taste.

Or she would sit in the closet and write. She would take each page, fold it three times and place it in mason jars she would bury in the backyard. Those tales would eventually morph into a series of unpublished memoir-leaning books she calls The Chocolate Syndicate. She has unearthed 300 of those early pages along the way.

Cocoa is a protagonist, as it has been in her life. Last week Muter opened the cute Cocoa Spa (250-5414) in a tucked away cottage off Dolores in Carmel (behind the Tuck Box, actually). She envisioned this sanctuary while working as a single mom and traveling as a corporate consultant – or voyaging to find new types of chocolate she filled her house with – all while saving to open the spa.

And she always carried chocolate.

If someone was having a bad day, she’d say, “Sounds like you could use a piece of chocolate.”

Kids frequently got a little too, pending parent approval, along with what she calls a “secret,” like, “That bird over there is smiling at you.”

“Chocolate’s my security blanket,” she says.

When those she encountered started writing notes of gratitude, they addressed them to “The Chocolate Lady,” and it stuck. As this hits newstands July 7, it’s International Chocolate Day. For The Chocolate Lady, every day is International Chocolate Day.

She’s fond of saying she can’t charge for chocolate, because it should always be a gift. As she adds on the spa’s website, “What chocolate represents to each of us has a depth that reaches far beyond the candy in hand. It moves from thought to soul instantaneously. Its calling is instinctual.”

Muter talks about chocolate like some discuss literature, art or music. When visitors stumble upon her comely corner and its freshly renovated space, massage beds and garden, she launches into a passionate show-and-tell about cacao – its origins, the ways it is harvested and how it absorbs flavors from the plants growing around it.

But even more than that she uses it.

She grinds cocoa fresh and gifts visitors hot chocolate 8-10am Thursday through Sunday.

She incorporates it in every course of her special dinners like the sold-out one coming July 23, when she’ll do things like a Merlot-and-chocolate-marinated filet, a cocoa butter-lime spread on sourdough and a blackberry-hazelnut-chocolate salad dressing.

“Like the meal at the end of the movie Chocolat!” she says. 

She crafts her own Belgian-style truffles like the dreamy mandarin/passionfruit truffle she shared with customers last week.

She’s working on something called Cocoa Clean, a beverage for kids that reverses tooth decay and builds up tooth enamel. She also deploys it in hair treatments.

The glow her skin enjoys is the best advertisement for another revelation: dark chocolate face masks. She claims to be 44 but looks a decade younger.

I tried the mask as part of a tasting/spa visit last week. Licensed esthetician and certified “cocoa-tician” Shelley Whitworth-Shipley brushed on the heated chocolate-cocoa butter-orange peel mask after steaming, massaging, cleansing and toning my face. (Spa treatments include different combinations of facials and massage and start at $185).

The only time my skin felt remotely this soft was after a visit to an old-school barber in New Orleans who used seven rounds of steaming towels as part of an hour-long, straight-razor shave. Only chocolate made it softer.

“When I use Maren’s products the difference is so obvious,” Whitworth-Shipley says, “You feel their face and it feels like baby skin.”

It’s a stunning story among many: skin’s perpetual villain, the architect of acne, actually restores and renews.

“It feeds your skin and your skin is happy,” says Muter, who sources her beans from Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Ghana for a proprietary blend. “We’re watching the skin absorb a substance so historically incredible it’s been called the food of gods.”

There are more stories from there. She makes up the tales for her 9:30am Tuesday morning Stories with The Chocolate Lady. With The Chocolate Syndicate she continues to add page after page to a fascinating life story.

On that front, an interesting twist has come into play. As it moves into its third phase, it’s no longer non-fiction. “Like a good dark chocolate,” she says, “it will be 70 percent true.”

But things that were originally fictitious – opening a spa, planning other locations in select cities, living in Big Sur – are actually happening.

Chocolate dreams are coming true.

~QUICKBITES ~

• A local institution celebrates a big landmark generously 2-5pm Sunday, July 10. Michael’s Taqueria (647-8654) turns 30 with prizes, free taco cart fare and mariachi at the original location on Forest Avenue in Pacific Grove. They’ve since added spots in Salinas and Marina; the outstanding wet burritos and blackened chicken tacos remain best sellers.
• On the 200 block of Reservation Road in Marina, a new Poke House is replacing a nail salon.
• Room for Dessert bakery across from the Monterey Sports Center is now Nuernberger’s German Sausages with standout bratwurst, schnitzel sandwiches, house-made sauerkraut and German cheesecake strudel.
• The chef carousel continues to spin, with Ben Spungin moving from Coastal Luxury Management’s corporate pastry chef post, where he oversaw baking and much more for Restaurant 1833, Cannery Row Brewing Company and Faith & Flower in L.A. He takes Yulanda Santos’ spot after she left Sierra Mar for Aubergine, where she now fills Ron Mendoza’s post after he left to start his own ice creamery.
• Construction is almost finished at Alvarado Ramen next to Poke Lab in downtown Monterey. Equipment comes next week and the place could open as soon as July 21.
• Bistro Moulin (333-1200) does a solid three-course prix fixe dinner for Bastille Day Thursday, July 14 ($48++).
• Hyatt Carmel Highlands’ new patio opens this week. More on the blog.
• Obon Festival at Buddhist Temple of the Monterey Peninsula happens noon-6pm Sunday, July 10, for the 70th time, with all sorts of sushi, teriyaki, udon, gyoza and kuri manju.Shiho Fukushima of Ocean Sushi is definitely one food booth to prioritize.
• Toby Rowland Jones is now sommelier and maître d’ at Folktale Winery in Carmel Valley, adding another knowledgable and social creature to a dynamic operation, which hosts an Emile Welman benefit concert July 9 (see p. 26).
• Joanne Harris in Chocolat: “Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”