We can thank Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin – French lawyer, politician, and most notably author of Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste, 1825) for Maribel Lieberman’s career in food. “I read that book and I almost ate it,” she says, laughing. “I read it line by line, and I read it again.” Lieberman, the woman behind the highly successful MarieBelle chocolates and author of MarieBelle Entertains (Rizzoli, September 2024) was hooked. “That’s when I decided, ‘I want to cook. I want to be him.’”
From Selling Caramels at Age Eight to MarieBelle New York
I meet Lieberman at the Cacao Bar in her flagship Soho boutique and we chat over a cup of her signature hot chocolate. Her clarity of vision, exuberance, and unrelenting commitment to what she does is remarkable. All qualities she has possessed since she was a child. Born in Honduras, the youngest of eight children, she got her start in food by parlaying her two penny a day allowance into a thriving business selling caramels. She was the ripe old age of ten.
At seventeen, she moved to the United States to become an au pair, going to school during the day and taking care of children at night. She had a successful career in fashion but knew it wasn’t for her. “I was not really so happy with fashion, so I started cooking at home and I started exploring all these different ingredients from different cultures,” she says.
That’s when it clicked. Lieberman has an uncanny ability to combine different ingredients from different food cultures deftly and with delightful and unexpected results. She launched a catering company, quickly building a clientele of entranced and loyal diners. “It’s not that I’m trying to force ingredients on people, but I try to mix ingredients that are familiar with unfamiliar ingredients, and then you start developing that taste, and at the end, the food becomes more global.”
Mariebelle New York Makes Chocolate for Global Citizens
Within five years of launching her catering business, Lieberman tells me – without missing a beat – that she cooked at the White House for President Bill Clinton. In 2000, she launched MarieBelle. Today, she has boutiques in New York City and in Japan, selling chocolates that look like miniature works of art. Aromas of chile, cardamom, or a light sprinkle of sea salt waft off of each dessert.
But her passion doesn’t begin or end with chocolate and her new book, MarieBelle Entertains is testament to her talent not only as a chef but also as an entertainer. Yes, it’s chock full of sweet treats like Chocolate covered toffee bites, moist and gooey molten chocolate cakes, and a show- stopping flourless chocolate cake – recipe courtesy of her friend, bon vivant and jewelry designer HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia. It also captures glamorous parties in New York City and her passion for travel (and food from) around the world. The parties feature dishes that are elegant but not fussy – the kind of invitation you’d jump at. The book, like the author, is exuberant and joyful, one to read and cook from in equal measure.
Story by Julia Platt Leonard
Mariebelle Entertains by Maribel Lieberman is published by Rizzoli
Photography by Mark Roskams
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