from France to Switzerland via Belgium, to each his own chocolate

French chocolate has been delighting millions of gourmets for decades. To learn his secrets, journalist Jules Lonchampt met Stéphane Bonnat, master chocolatier, in the temple of French chocolate in Isère. The family business manufactures dozens of tablets from cocoa from all over the world. His speciality ? Dark chocolate. The recipe is simple: cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar. “The chocolate bar as it was 150 years ago“, describes Stéphane Bonnat.

In Belgium, Julien Gasparutto spoke with Jérôme Grimonpon, artisan chocolatier. In the country, the tradition is the praline, a filled chocolate shell, created in the royal galleries of Brussels. Jérôme Grimonpon prepares the shell with a very powerful dark chocolate, then adds a garnish: yuzu citrus jelly, and green tea ganache. The praline is an ode to creation, sometimes with a few extravagances.

Finally, in Switzerland, chocolate “is a very old tradition“, says journalist Denis Sébastien. The specialty is milk chocolate, invented on the shores of Lake Geneva at the end of the 19th century. Guillaume Bichet, chocolate maker in Versoix (Switzerland), tells how to obtain it: by adding milk powder with cocoa paste.