Chloé Doutre-Roussel, the bean in the body
Her name is on everyone's lips in the world of chocolate. One day in Venezuela, another in Budapest, then in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, and Japan, Chloé Doutre-Roussel travels in search of the best beans and the best processes. A knowledge she passes on with passion and rigor to beginners and advanced alike.
How did your story with chocolate begin?
Chloé Doutre-Roussel: Chocolate is part of my roots: I was born in Mexico and lived in South America until I was 14. My father's professional situation meant that we moved every three or four years, to Chile, Bolivia... Ever since I was a little girl, I've been called "Chloé Chocolat". I've always loved tasting, with the curiosity to compare and take notes. But I hadn't planned to work in chocolate. I studied agricultural engineering, then went to London to train in film and photography, which I loved. However, I felt that I would never be more than a good assistant, and that wasn't enough for me. I'm always questioning everything. When it's no longer my place, I organize my departure.
When I arrived in Paris, I wrote to chocolate houses to be a sales assistant. I had a Baccalaureate + 8. It was rather oddly perceived. Pierre Hermé, then with Ladurée, interviewed me on a Saturday and asked me how I felt about tasting Pralus chocolate bars. in the end, he told me to come back on Monday morning. I was an intern, then a secretary. It was an excellent school, I tasted a lot and asked a lot of questions. Then I managed the chocolate boutique on the Champs-Élysées avenue. Later, I was lucky enough to join Fortnum & Mason as a chocolate buyer, a highly coveted position in a London department store. I took the opportunity to learn more and travel around the plantations. I was already interested in the bean-to-bar movement, and this interest grew as I met pioneers in the United States and Europe like Steve DeVries in Denver and Naive Chocolates in Lithuania.
So you decided to set up your own company...
C. D.-R.: To throw myself over the cliff, yes! For someone who had been a salaried employee all his life, it wasn't easy. But I'd been running wine-tasting courses for a long time and was increasingly invited to give talks at festivals abroad. I was approached by a cooperative in Bolivia, which was making chocolate from its cocoa and wanted to launch a range for export, embellished with typical local products (salt, quinoa). We presented it at the Salon du Chocolat in 2008.the packaging read "Chloé Chocolat".it was a very important experience.it was the first quality chocolate range at the time to be developed 100% by cocoa producers and distributed worldwide. They've become a family, and I'm going back to see them this year. There's been one mission after another, for a culinary school in Japan where I've been teaching since 2010, another in Brazil... I never spend six months in the same place.
