Benoit Nihant Maitre Chocolatier

Benoit Nihant Maitre Chocolatier from Brussels was my favourite booth at Le Salon du Chocolat 2015 in Paris, one of the most renown fairs dedicated to chocolate.

I was to happy to meet him along with his fantastic team: I could taste all of their bars and it was like embarking in a delicious (and fortunately for me, naturally gluten free!) journey exploring excellent chocolate cru from Ecuador, Madagascar, Brasil, Bali.

« From bean to bar » translates the philosophy of the few and greatest Maitre Chocolatier and Benoit Nihant is no exception to this: his passion and love for chocolate has brought him to foreign countries where he works closely with the cocoa farmers, he knows the plantations, the soil, he can check, supervise and select only the best fava beans.

Furthermore in order to preserve the unique quality and aroma of the fava beans and also to pay homage to the planters’ hard and precious work, he doesn’t mix beans originating from different plantations.

As he says: « I have opted to master the entire process, right from the selection of the best batches of fine cocoa beans from planters-harvesters who share my passion for excellence. Once they have been transported to my warehouse, I torrify these beans gently, grind them methodically, peel them patiently, crush them and then conch them with love… »

Imagine that to make a 50gr chocolate bar like the ones I bought for example, it takes four days of work!

This is how good and precious Benoit’s work really is and believe me, you can feel all of it when you taste his chocolate: it is some of the best that I have ever had!

Apart from the bars, at Benoit Nihant, there is other chocolate that we can enjoy like truffles, pralines or the samba hearts, his own version of a love potion made of liquid caramel, passion fruit and Samba tea inside an intense dark chocolate shell.

Well, enough to satisfy whatever our taste or desire might be!