Food Finds
Life by Chocolate
Self-trained,
Chuck Siegel has been in the confectionary business for about two decades.
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There’s no secret to making high-quality confections, says Chuck
Siegel, founder of three-year-old Charles
Chocolates. “You just use exceptional ingredients and are very careful
about how you cook them.” Well, almost no secrets: At the new Chocolate Bar in
the company’s Emeryville factory, patrons can sip hot cocoa while gazing
through huge windows at the entire candy-making process—except for one part.
“The only thing we don’t show is the area where we measure the ingredients, so
no one can steal our recipes with a camcorder,” Siegel says
Everything at
Charles—from the fleur de sel caramels sealed in an
edible chocolate box to the tea-infused truffles imprinted by a master
calligrapher to the triple-chocolate almonds dusted in Valrhona
cocoa powder—is handmade. Self-trained, Siegel has been in the business for
about two decades (he founded Attivo Confections back
when Reagan was president) and is staying in it for good reason, even beyond
his company’s fourfold growth this past year. Statistics show that the
premium-chocolate market continues to skyrocket, due no doubt to its perennial
appeal and, as Siegel describes it, Americans’ tendency to “never go back” once
they taste the good stuff. “You can’t walk two blocks in