Chocolate is an intoxicating and evocative foodstuff that fires the imagination. When a young Roald Dahl was attending Repton School, Derbyshire in the 1920s, chocolate companies would send test packages to the students in exchange for their opinions on the products. At that time, Cadbury and Rowntree were the two biggest chocolate companies in England. Competition between the two brands was so fierce that they would send spies into the rival factories to steal one another’s recipes.
This heady mix of chocolate and espionage inspired Dahl to write his classic novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – a book that spawned several films. Gene Wilder, Johnny Depp and, most recently, Timothee Chalamet have all given us their interpretation of the world’s most famous fictional confectioner. But which one best personified Dahl’s Willy Wonka on screen?
Award-winning chocolatier Georgia Quealy of Athlone-based Bon Chocolatiers has her own opinion on the subject.
“The original one is my favourite because it's reminiscent of when I was younger, watching it for the very first time,” she says, before diplomatically insisting that “they're all amazing.”
Quealy was especially impressed by the fact that, for the most recent Wonka screen outing, producers hired a professional chocolatier to oversee all of the film’s confectionery creations.
Quealy and Daniel Linehan, her partner and co-founder of Bon Chocolatiers, got their own golden ticket when they were invited to join the roster of premium quality products in the Dunnes Stores Simply Better Range.
In their case, however, luck had nothing to do with it - years of hard work led to the golden opportunity. And for a fledgling brand such as theirs, being in such esteemed company opened doors that have allowed the firm to expand in a way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
Referring to the partnership with Simply Better, Georgia says, “they have really helped us along the way. For a small, handmade producer, to be taken from that stage into one of the biggest retailers in the country… it's been a tough journey but without them, I don't know how we would have done it, really.”
Little nougats of genius
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Bon Chocolatiers' hand-rolled salted caramel truffles for the Simply Better range at Dunnes Stores
They wanted us to produce a bespoke range for them. What we do at Bon Chocolatiers is mainly hand-painted filled chocolate bonbons. We also do chocolate bars but for the Simply Better range, we’ve developed six chocolate products that are more accessible as individual treats
Come with us to a world of pure imagination in the market town of Athlone, where Bon Chocolatiers creates its delectable treats
The journey originally began back when Georgia and Daniel first met as catering college students, over seven years ago. While training to become chefs, the two young gourmands developed an interest in the pastry and chocolate side of the course, something that flowered into a full-time commitment.
Once finished college, they honed their cookery skills with some of the best chefs in the country, at the Michelin-starred Campagne in Kilkenny, and at Thyme, a Bib Gourmand restaurant in their native Athlone. These high-pressure environments encouraged a driven work ethic and an obsessive attention to detail.
Georgia and Daniel have brought this dedication to their chocolate-making. As Georgia puts it, “the kinds of things that you learn while you're training in such high-end kitchens, they stay with you for life.”
They further developed their skill at pastry-making and hand-painting chocolate by touring Paris and Barcelona. There, they studied with Vincent Vallée, winner of the World Chocolate Masters 2015, who is often referred to as "the world's best chocolatier."
In 2020, Daniel was studying in Las Vegas under the famous pastry chef Amaury Guichon, with Georgia due to follow him over for a holiday, when Covid-19 intervened and their best laid plans were scuppered. Returning to Ireland in lockdown, they used the downtime to develop techniques and recipes in their small workshop and, little by little, Bon Chocolatiers was born.
Opportunity first came in the form of the Food and Wine Awards, in which Bon Chocolatiers came runner-up in their first year of entry. The following year they were nominated again and, this time, won the award outright.
Part of the prize was the chance to develop a product with Simply Better.
“It was an unbelievable opportunity,” Georgia says. “They wanted us to produce a bespoke range for them. What we do at Bon Chocolatiers is mainly hand-painted, filled chocolate bonbons. We also make chocolate bars, but for the Simply Better range, we’ve developed six new chocolate products that are more accessible as individual treats.”
Of the products they created, two are made up of shards – gorgeous splinters of broken up chocolate, the surface textures of which play on the palate.
“We have a lovely dark orange crisp one, and we do a really nice pistachio and raspberry shard as well. There are raspberry chocolate swirls through it and there are roasted pistachio nuts in there, too,” says Georgia.
There are also three types of clusters – delicious little spherical confections that come in a series of enticing flavours. “There is a mint crisp cluster, a homemade honeycomb cluster, and cranberry, orange and hazelnut.
“We also make salted caramel truffles using our own salted caramel. They won a Great Taste Award, and we use Oriel Irish Sea Salt in it. It would be the most popular flavour among our chocolates.
“Our salted caramel truffles for Dunnes Stores are really, really nice – they are hand-rolled truffles. We've taken inspiration from what we do as Bon Chocolatiers and tailored it to suit the Simply Better range."
Originally, it was just Georgia and Daniel working out of a small facility, but success has forced a move.
“We've really outgrown the little place that we've been over the last two years but, thankfully, since taking on the collaboration with Dunnes Stores, we’ve had to look for a bigger place”.
They recently took on their first full-time chocolatier; a colleague with whom they studied in college. At Christmas, they hired two additional staff, and they are now looking at “one or maybe two” more employees as they move into new custom-fitted premises.
As for the future, Georgia and Daniel are constantly experimenting and developing new and ever more delectable handcrafted chocolate creations.
Delectable imaginings
NEVEN'S RECIPE FOR
GEORGIA, DANIEL AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
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A touch of class
Georgia and Daniel met in catering college and bonded over a love of sweet treats
Savour the heartwarming delights of this family-run Irish dessert business, sprinkled with love and tradition
See Neven Maguire’s Belgian Chocolate Trifle recipe
The imaginative, creative side of the craft obviously inspires Georgia and Daniel.
“We had a really strong interest in the hand-painted side of chocolate making. Daniel was mad into the competitions we did in college in which you make showpieces out of chocolate. And I did an art course after I finished secondary school, so the interest was always there.”
Shards of happiness
Bon Chocolatiers' range for Simply Better includes a series of delicious, flavoured textured shards
HANDMADE WITH:
Swiss milk chocolate and handmade honeycomb
HANDMADE WITH:
Swiss dark chocolate, crushed crisp biscuit and refreshing peppermint oil
HANDMADE WITH:
Swiss white chocolate and raspberry chocolate, luscious pistachio paste and roasted pisachios
HANDMADE WITH:
Swiss milk chocolate, plump cranberries and roasted hazelnuts
HANDMADE WITH:
Swiss milk chocolate, crisp shell and a luscious Oriel sea salted caramel center
HANDMADE WITH:
Swiss dark chocolate, crushed crisp biscuit and zesty orange oil
Discover the Simply Better range
“We hope to introduce a couple of new products before the end of the year when we move into the newer place and expand the capacity. We always have so many ideas; it's hard to keep up with yourself when you have so many things that you want to be developing. And we always have to take a bit of a step back and just say, one thing at a time."
Or as Gene Wilder as Wonka in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory says, "Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation and 2% butterscotch ripple."
“That’s 105%!” Charlie retorts. And that’s the level of sheer invention and hard work that’s alive and well in Bon Chocolatiers, and its ever-expanding chocolate empire on the River Shannon.
Little nougats of genius
The imaginative, creative side of the craft obviously inspires Georgia and Daniel.
“We had a really strong interest in the hand-painted side of chocolate making. Daniel was mad into the competitions we did in college in which you make showpieces out of chocolate. And I did an art course after I finished secondary school, so the interest was always there.”
Originally, it was just Georgia and Daniel working out of a small facility, but success has forced a move.
“We've really outgrown the little place that we've been over the last two years but, thankfully, since taking on the collaboration with Dunnes Stores, we’ve had to look for a bigger place”.
They recently took on their first full-time chocolatier; a colleague with whom they studied in college. At Christmas, they hired two additional staff, and they are now looking at “one or maybe two” more employees as they move into new custom-fitted premises.
As for the future, Georgia and Daniel are constantly experimenting and developing new and ever more delectable handcrafted chocolate creations.
Season's eatings
Bon Chocolatiers' hand-rolled salted caramel truffles for the Simply Better range at Dunnes Stores
A touch of class
Georgia and Daniel met in catering college and bonded over a love of sweet treats