Meet the Chocolatiers
Behind
L'Artisan du Chocolat is a team of partners in life and in
chocolate: Gerard Coleman and Anne Weyns. The first is a chef and
chocolatier passionate about his products and hands on in our
atelier; the second a repented business consultant looking after
everything else that a growing business needs. If you would like to
know more about us, click on our
Chocolate
Vitae.
We employ a
handful of staff in our shop and atelier. Oddly we do not have many
or sometimes any trained chocolatiers apart from ourselves. It is
not that we would not like to but we cannot find them. As most
shops in the UK just buy in and resell chocolates, trained
chocolatiers are as common as unicorns. And yes, we are not the
easiest people to work for. Nothing short of perfection is
acceptable. Our dedication to work and quality frightens the few
who do apply. We don't have any staff in sales, marketing,
communication, design, public relations, merchandising, packaging
design or consultancy. We do it ourselves after hours. The money
saved is reinvested in our ingredients and equipment. We design our
packaging ourselves, paying attention to quality of materials and
simplicity. "Luxury" chocolate boxes often cost more than their
content; why, we ask, when nobody eats the carton?
We do not want to sell the image of luxury chocolates, we aim to
sell memorable and exceptional chocolates skilfully crafted - only
that is the true essence of luxury.
Chocolate
Vitae
1972:
Gerard is born in Ireland and Anne in Belgium
1992: A chance meeting in Ireland during the summer
holidays, we were 20! 1995: Gerard is a
pastry chef at Grammercy Tavern in New York and Anne gets a
Master's degree in science 1996: Anne enters the
intriguing business world at McKinsey&Co; Gerard gets sacked
from first chocolate job at
Ackermans 1997: Gerard
trains at Pierre Marcolini in Brussels whilst Anne finds out
that consulting is not as glamorous as it seems
1998: Welcome to London, Gerard aims to start Rococo's
in-house production of chocolates but personalities clash; Anne
moves to Mckinsey London office 1999: L'Atelier
du Chocolat LTD is founded; first samples are made and Gordon
Ramsay puts them on his menu. We start a stall at Borough Market
every Saturday 2000: Our first tobacco
chocolates are served at the Fat Duck 2001: Our
shop opens in London; our business changes its name to L'Artisan du
Chocolat and gets trademarked. Anne happily leaves her consulting
job to help full time 2002: Our chocolates fly
on the Concorde. Our Easter window display of chocolate "Play Boy"
bunny causes a few nearly missed car crashes in Lower Sloane
street 2003: Liquid salted caramels are born and
flying out of the window. We start legal proceedings against Barry
Callebaut, one of the largest chocolate producers in the world for
trademark infringement in the UK. A year long battle starts that
will pump much of our cash and our energy, but not our
pride. 2004: Best Producer Award, by the
Observer Food Monthly; our chocolates accompany the last Concorde
flight 2005: the O collection
(incredibly thin disks filled) and the pearls are added to our
products but we are running out of space.
2006: We finally receive
our new coating pan and manage a very tough move from
a 3000 sqft building to a new 17000 sqft building. But
boy, was it worth it! 2007: we
produce our own couverture from ground cocoa beans- and that is
pretty rare - conching and refining in our atelier. We've gone
through a steep learning curve on food safety and control with our
first contract with M&S. 2008: our
second year in Japan, busy experiments with more Tbars and planning
a new retail shop somewhere... this year is starting full
speed!
meet the chocolatiers
