Chocolate manufacturer, born in Rapallo, NW Italy, the son of a leading chocolatier. In 1837 he travelled to South America, where he established a chocolate trade, eventually settling in Lima, Peru, and then moved on to San Francisco, where he supplied the 1849 gold rush miners with chocolate. He founded his chocolate company in the city, building it up into one of the largest stores in the W USA. Ghirardelli Square is now a feature of the San Francisco tourist scene, the old store being one of the buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake.
Domenico Ghirardelli, Sr. was born in Rapallo Italy in 1817, the son and apprentice of a chocolatier. In 1837, Ghirardelli moved to Uruguay, then moved again in 1838, this time to Lima, Peru, and established a confectionery, and began using the Spanish equivalent of his Italian name, Domingo.
In 1849 he moved to California, upon the recommendation of his former neighbor, James Lick, who had brought 600 pounds of chocolate with him to San Francisco in 1848. In 1852, he moved to San Francisco and established the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company at Ghirardelli Square.
Around the year 1865, Ghirardelli discovered that by hanging a bag of ground cacao beans in a warm room, the cocoa butter would drip off, leaving behind a residue that can then be converted into ground chocolate.
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