Anissa Talbi-Dobson has just this week opened L'Atelier Chocolat, a boutique chocolate store in Hastings. The French chocolatiere tells Mark Story ethical chocolate-making is at the core of what she does.
1 Tell us about your beginnings in chocolate making.
I was trained by a chocolatiere who was in his early 80s, he was an extremely passionate chocolatiere. I thought I would learn a few things about the world of chocolate and see how it goes. I became more and more interested and discovered the potentials in terms of creativity. Also the political aspect of it was quite a shock when I discovered the reality of unfairness, abuse and exploitation behind the scene. I knew from then that I will exclusively work with products that are organic and fairly traded.
2 How do you come up with flavour combinations?
Through a lot of mistakes and errors. But experimenting is what happens right after every idea I have.