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
small number of dedicated production and retail staff . We
concentrate our resources on buying high quality ingredients and
controlling all quality aspects of our production instead of
spending on marketing, sales, packaging design etc. 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|1997: Gerard trains at Pierre Marcolini in
Brussels|1998: Welcome to London|1999: our 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 Chelsea shop opens in London|2002: Our chocolates fly on
the Concorde|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|2005: the O collection and the pearls are
created|2006: we move from a 3000 sqft building to a new
17000 sqft building|2007: we start producing our own
chocolate from ground cocoa beans,conching and refining in our
atelier. Our chocolates are sold in Tokyo|2008: 4
new salted caramels and opening of our Selfridges shop and first
chocolateria|2009: planned opening of our
Notting Hill shop and full scale
chocolateria
meet the chocolatiers
