Submitted by ANDREA WEIGL — Staff Writer
Within the next week, many of us will be pondering where to buy chocolate for our sweethearts.
You might like to know that Raleigh is now home to two artisan bean-to-bar chocolate makers. These businesses are few and far between; there are at most two dozen in the United States, and yet we claim two of them. How did that happen?
One spawned the other.
In 2006, Hallot Parson started a fledgling chocolate bar business above a wine shop in the coastal town of Beaufort, N.C. His Beaufort Bar, a 67 percent dark chocolate with sea salt combination, was such a hit that two years later he moved his business, Escazu Artisan Chocolates, to Raleigh. Parson made bars from chocolate he purchased from other companies but soon decided to learn to make his own.
It is a complicated process that Parson had to figure out using historic cookbooks and an online forum that included a few other American entrepreneurs who went on to create their own bean-to-bar businesses. Parson also got a basic lesson from a Costa Rican farmer beginning to dabble in the process. First, roast cacao beans, then crack the husks and separate out the nibs, which are ground into paste that become the basis for chocolate.
"If it was easy, I would have lost interest early on," Parson says. Parson and his business partner, Danielle Centeno, bring their culinary training to their craft, making bars made with goat's milk or flavored with chiles or pumpkin seeds. Beyond the bars, Centeno crafts handmade truffles and other confections that pair chocolate with habanero, elderflower or strawberry and balsamic vinegar. Both travel to Central and South America to buy cacao beans directly from farmers.
By 2009, their business was going so well that they moved from a small location on Glenwood South to a building on North Blount Street to increase production. (Later they would add retail to the Blount Street location.) So they hired a couple to help: Starr Sink and Sam Ratto.
Sink and Ratto had recently moved from California. Sink had spent years working customer service in record shops and Ratto had a marketing job for a skateboard shoe company. Ratto's job became roasting, sorting and grinding the beans - a process that could be monotonous but captivated him. It reminded him of farming, which his grandparents did in northern and central California.
"There's something about making chocolate that I really dig," Ratto says.
He also loved the constant challenge of weather's effect on chocolate making: "You got to solve a puzzle every day."
Ratto and Sink worked for Escazu for about a year before parting ways. When Ratto realized he missed making chocolate, a friend offered to help finance the couple's own bean-to-bar venture. Videri Chocolate Factory opened in December on West Davie Street across from The Pit Restaurant.
The companies are similar but also distinct. Escazu is tucked away in a residential neighborhood near William Peace University. Its grinder and roaster are hulking pieces of equipment dating to the 1930s and earlier that Parson bought in Spain. The retail shop sells bars and beautiful handmade chocolates and even offers a hot chocolate bar. The bars are available across the state and online.
Videri's production area gleams with new equipment and large picture windows so folks can see how chocolate is made while taking tours. Videri sells only bars but hopes to add coffee and truffles later this year. The website is a placeholder, but the owners hope to offer online sales soon.
Both makers have recently received national recognition. Two of Escazu's chocolate bars won Good Food Awards. Videri made a list of 10 best new sweet shops in this month's issue of Travel + Leisure magazine.
Parson sees his competition as a good thing, like having two restaurants is better than one. "It creates a scene," Parson says.
