march-2013

uilding is decorated to look as if it has been dipped in chocolate), the
genial 44-year-old Bruges native reels off a few of his more outrageous
creations. “We’ve done cauliflower, oysters, grass, melon and Parma
ham. Rain. Anchovy. Caramel. Chocolate frogs coated in lidocaine…”
It could all be terribly gimmicky, but Persoone has a stellar culinary
pedigree. He trained as a chef before opening The Chocolate Line in
1992 and his creations are brilliant, experimental gastronomy: the
outlandish combinations not only work, they change your perspective
on what chocolate is and how it can taste.
The culinary establishment agrees: Persoone is one of only three
chocolatiers in the Michelin Guide, and has the distinction of supplying
all of Belgium’s three-star restaurants with chocolates. He’s also part
of Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck ‘think tank’, and tells me a wonderful
anecdote about experimenting with chocolate and a tank of helium,
and ending up surrounded by clouds of floating chocolate. René Redzepi
of Noma (Restaurant magazine’s Best Restaurant in the World 2012)
sent his pastry chef to train at the factory last summer.
“I’m a cook, not a real chocolate maker,” says Persoone. “For me,
chocolate is just another department of the kitchen. A lot of chef
colleagues say that working with chocolate every day must be boring,
but there are so many things we can do, it’s wonderful.” The experimental
culture extends to his whole team: 12 people in the factory, and another
22 split between the two shops (the second, opened in 2010, is in a
gorgeous frescoed space in Napoleon’s former palace on the Meir in
Antwerp). “We have everything here: bakers, cooks, even a butcher.
The one thing they have in common is they all fell in love with chocolate,
and we share the same passion.”
Each week the team meets to discuss new ideas, to experiment and
taste. The test kitchen is a riot of scribbled recipes and sketched designs,
mysterious, industrial-scale pieces of kitchen equipment and jars of
esoteric flavours and spices. Current projects include chocolate ‘pills’
flavoured with walnut, fig and goat’s cheese, and a new smoked-tea
praline for Michelin three-star chef Sergio Herman of Oud Sluis.
“We use lots of strange ingredients,” says Persoone, gesturing at a
row of jars. “That’s powdered coca leaf from Peru. It’s legal to buy there
so I brought it back in my luggage wrapped in my socks and underwear!”
Developing a new chocolate can take anything from a few hours to six
months, says Persoone; sometimes you get lucky, more often you need
to test exhaustively. Are there any disasters? Things that just don’t work?
“Rose hasn’t worked out yet. I tried, but it tasted like soap. The challenge
36 march 2013
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