but I couldn’t make them in their kitchen I had to make them from home. So I built a small extended kitchen and worked from there and that’s where the company started.
I worked from home for two years before I moved into my first unit.
And is that where you still work?
We’re in the process of moving into a new bigger until from Croydon to Lewis, which will allow us to do a lot more as it’s a bigger and better facility.
What plans have you got in mind when you say you want to do more?
People are starting to come to us for artistry work, we’ve moved away from the traditional showpieces. Showpieces are symmetrical, a certain way and we don’t do that; we now do art pieces for example Nelson Mandela and then small hand-painted placards.
We’ve got a new piece we’re working on now which looks like a stone carving but completely chocolate and that’s what we’re going into – more into bespoke art work.
So are these artistry pieces the element that you enjoy most about your role or do you like creating the chocolates for your online shop too?
I like creating full stop. When we set up again I will be the creative director so the creative element will be down to me and then the team will develop what I create.
The whole philosophy for me is: “indulgence is everything”. There is more to it, it doesn’t mean just to indulge, the first range was about pure, single flavours, that weren’t mixed.
That goes back to my chef days where it was about keeping it simple, if there was a carrot and coriander soup we stripped that back to being simply a carrot soup but it was the best one you could taste.
If I was to say that I was creating a raspberry and mustard chocolate in your mind you want it to work but if I said I was creating a raspberry chocolate you already know what that tastes like so I’ve got stiffer competition to create a new raspberry chocolate; so that’s why I went back to the basics almost back to the building blocks (the indulgence blocks).
We have 12 of these indulgence pillars that are foundation of the company and then we build on top of that.
Is it right that you made chocolates for the Queen’s 80th birthday? How did that come about?
It was fantastic. At the time of being asked I was supplying the Royal Opera House so they asked me if I wanted to do it, we selected certain flavours and then we did her afternoon tea too afterwards.
What has been your favourite piece to create so far throughout your career?
The most challenging and exciting piece is our chocolate man with a chocolate table. That was for the 50 Best Restaurants in the world and I had help from
John Costello. John and I created that piece which was a 7 foot man with a table and bowls; all out of chocolate.
But what was most exciting was that they said we can’t do any chocolate work in the hall or on site. So we had to make everything before but had to do it so it could be taken apart. The chocolate work we’ve already mastered, it’s the other elements that go with it that I love, so the idea of creating something that can be taken apart but doesn’t look like something that can be taken apart.
What would you say has been your biggest achievement then or the one thing that you are most proud of?
The pure indulgence range which has won two awards of excellence. Every chocolate in the box has won an award, we said we’re not going to bring out any more until every chocolate in the box has won an award. So we competed each chocolate which nearly killed me.
When I broke down the 12 chocolates it sounded great but how can you win an award with a flavour of vanilla? It’s a very hard thing to do – to mix vanilla with chocolate and win an award and I only realised the size of what we had taken on when we started competing.
Happy now that all of them have won but me being me I’m going to re-work some of them as one of the 12 has won bronze, four have won silver and the rest have won gold; so I’m going to rework the bronze and the silver so all of them win gold.
If you're thinking about becoming a pastry chef like Paul then see what positions are available
here.
