Dominic Fortin smells the chocolate liquor.
Dominic Fortin puts his nose into a tub of pure chocolate liquor and inhales deeply. The British Columbia-based pastry chef is in France to create his own signature chocolate blends – one dark, one milk – at Cacao Barry's Or Noir laboratory, a unique space offering bespoke services to the world's top chocolatiers.
Fortin's at the forefront of a growing trend in which high-end restaurants are taking their in-house desserts and petit fours to the next level, with exclusive chocolates created by them. The roster of Or Noir graduates is impressive: Two-starred Michelin chef Michel Roux Jr. of London's legendary Le Gavroche came through earlier this year; Girona, Spain's three-starred El Cellar de Can Roca's own chocolate bar is on display (right next to those created by the chief chocolatier at Harrods).
From the outside, Or Noir is all 19th-century bucolic French country house. It sits in the Cacao Barry complex – a cluster of old houses, a factory and a low-slung modernist office block – in the small town of Meulan, a short drive northwest of Paris. Chocolate is as much the life-blood of this town as the Seine that flows through it, having provided industry and jobs since Charles Barry founded the company in 1842.
Inside the house, a narrow, creaky staircase leads to a series of nondescript offices that hold no clue to the building's history or modern allure. There's little to evoke any sense of what lies on the top floor. It's unexpected: white, bright and clinical. There's no hint of Willy Wonka's river of chocolate here.
Still, Fortin looks like a kid in a candy shop as he puts on his chef's jacket and surveys the world map displaying the cocoa-growing regions. For the next several hours, it will just be him working with Amélie Allemand, the Or Noir food scientist, with Jean-Jacques Berjot, head of Cacao Barry's Montreal office, hovering about, taking copious notes and interjecting only sparingly.
Fortin is used to working with direct-origin chocolates from individual countries based on their particular flavour profiles. Ecuador is known for its coffee, nuts and vanilla notes. Madagascar tends to bring fruity acidity reminiscent of pineapple and grapes. Indonesia's caramel profile makes it a popular component for milk chocolate.
To achieve the balance he is looking for in a particular dessert or bonbon, Fortin will create his own blends, melting the chocolates, adding more cocoa butter and any other flavourings he needs. By the end of today, he hopes to perfect an all-purpose blend that will become the primary base across his chocolate work.
"I love yellow fruits," he says. "And a little tobacco."
He's looking for mango, banana peel and citrus notes for the dark blend, more biscuit, caramel and nuttiness in the milk version.
"What is important," he says emphatically, "is that I like it. Yes, it has to work in many applications, but I am not here to compromise on flavour.
"To be able to build something so personal from scratch is amazing," he adds, beginning the journey by tasting his first chocolate of the day.
The process is exacting, and requires a palate able to discern different attributes – yellow fruit, red fruit, nuts, tobacco, wood – in much the same way as vintners approach wine. And, like wine, those attributes are born from the terroir (soil, climate, etc.) of where the cocoa was grown.
Tasting is blind, removing any ability to fall back on preconceived ideas of what the chef believes will form the basis of the blend.
Dark chocolate is created from different combinations of the cocoa liquor and cocoa butter (the solids) of single origin chocolates with sugar. Milk chocolate is the same process, but with the addition of dairy. A 70-per-cent dark chocolate bar refers to the amount of cocoa solids, and contains 30 per cent sugar.
Or Noir was created in 2009, with about 20 chef-chocolatiers taking part each year. It was introduced by parent company Cacao Barry as a way to work with chefs ready to push chocolate into new territory. The better the chef, the better the chocolate – and that, the company recognized, could only reflect well on them.
"We're not interested in chasing volume on this," Berjot explains. "We are after the best – and the most creative – out there."
A worldwide operation, Cacao Barry has offices from Milan to Chicago to Tokyo. Quebec-born Fortin, from Whistler's innovative Bearfoot Bistro, is the third Canadian to embark on the program; before him were French-born chef Éric Gonzalez – when he was at Montreal's L'Auberge Saint Gabriel – and master chocolatier Greg Hooks from Vancouver's Chocolate Arts. The chocolates Fortin creates will be used in bars and be versatile enough to work in his desserts and truffles.
Hooks was the first artisan chocolatier in North America to visit Or Noir, and says his blend – called Allure – has proven to be a crowdpleaser: 60 per cent of clients at tasting events cite it as their favourite.
His own tastes have, however, moved on in the 18 months since he was at the lab.
"Tastes evolve," he shrugs. "Now I would like something more complex, and I am planning on returning to create another blend."
Back in France, it's almost lunchtime and Fortin is tasting the third blend of his dark chocolate of the day – a tweak on an earlier version "I want a little less tobacco and more fruit," he tells Allemand.
The result – a blend of Cuban (those tobacco notes), Tanzanian and Peruvian beans – is, he says, exactly what he is looking for. Not so the milk blend: It takes five different combinations – Allemand says the most any chef has created – before Fortin is happy. "I love the banana skin," he says of batch three. "But it needs more nuttiness."
The final result – a less-sweet, silky smooth milk chocolate with strong honey notes – contains 51 per cent cocoa solids (Hershey's is 11 per cent; Cadbury's Dairy Milk is 20 per cent).
It's such an unusually high cocoa content that Berjot voices concerns during the afternoon. "Are you sure?" he asks Fortin more than once. "You are going to lose the colour. It will be so dark."
But the finished version converts him. It is, Berjot says, a triumph.
"This is a statement," he enthuses. "This is a new generation of milk chocolate."
The cost to the Bearfoot Bistro for its unique product is all paid in chocolate: They must commit to purchasing 1,000 kilograms of Fortin's blends. In an average year, he says, he buys about 800 kg of good-quality dark, 300 kg of lower-quality dark, 400 kg of good-quality milk and around 300 kg of white chocolate. At $20 to $25 a kilo, the price of the Or Noir product is, he says, close to that of the best-quality dark chocolate available.
A month later and back in Whistler, Fortin says he tastes the samples of his chocolates every day. He remains completely happy with the dark, but wishes he'd had another day to fine-tune the milk.
"I wish I could have used some caramelized milk powder and more vanilla," he notes. "But, that being said, I will add this myself before moulding it into bars."
The chocolate is expected to arrive in October, to be packaged in time to celebrate the Bearfoot Bistro's 20th anniversary.
"I think I have created a really good base," he says. "But now I have so much to do before I can show it off."
Editor's note: El Cellar de Can Roca is located in Girona, Spain. Incorrect information appeared in the original version of this article.