Chocolate Arts

A dark secret.

Chocolate Arts, the elegant little shop in Kitsilano where well-shod ladies buy immaculate boxes of fruit filled ganaches, had rather humble beginnings. Proprietor Greg Hook, the philosophy student turned chocolatier, moved from Saskatchewan to Vancouver, and quickly developed an interest in chocolates. (There was only one chocolate shop in the rural town he grew up in.) Once in Vancouver, he befriended an organic herb grower. One day in the summer of 1989, when he had an abundance of mint, they decided to coat the leaves in chocolate for a higher price tag. Shortly thereafter a business was born.

“I never made a plan,” Hook says, “I just did what felt right, and I ended up here.”

“Here” is a pretty great place to be by the looks of it. Hook opened a shop in 1992, a tiny shop on West Fourth, where he remained until three years ago when they moved into a much larger location off the beaten track on West Third. It’s unassuming from the outside but one step in and you are filled with the crisp white walls and the soft sweet smell of something fruity cooking in the background. The larger shop has allowed them to broaden their offerings, and you can now pop in for a sandwich, a pastry, or a salad. If you’re feeling more indulgent, the Hot Chocolate High Tea includes hot chocolate “shots” of the most rich and decadent drinking chocolate you could imagine, and tiny pastries and chocolates are served alongside. This could include Hook’s Allure chocolate, which he blended specially for the shop in a chocolate factory outside Paris, run by Cacao Barry. It’s a New World blend of Mexican, Dominican, and Peruvian cocoa beans that are low in tannins and high in red fruit flavours. At 71 per cent, it’s definitely dark, but with a sweet, fruity finish.

Hook’s passion for locally sourced produce is still very much at play, and his chocolates greatly reflect this. He is most famous for his fruity chocolates; a seasonal selection of fruit, which comes from Hazelmere Organic Farm in the Fraser Valley, and Rotha Farms in the Okanagan, is so fresh that the stems on cherries are still a sparkly bright green, and the peaches are near bruising, they’re so soft. He then roasts the fruit, or dehydrates it, to concentrate the juices, and ensures that there is no loss of flavour that can come from other methods of cooking. The result is chocolates with an impossibly strong essence of the cherries, or roasted pear, or the sweet-and-sour of rhubarb, that feature in the chocolates that he is most proud of. “They bring me back to my prairie roots,” he says with a grin.

It’s that sense of nostalgia that makes Hook’s chocolates so comforting. Certainly they are better than the chocolates of most people’s youths, but they taste like freshly picked fruit, and the dark chocolate one might have stolen from their parents. They taste deeply familiar, which is why his shop has been running so strong for over 20 years.

Photos provided by Chocolate Arts.

Post Date:

March 24, 2015