Michel Richart was born in a chocolate loving family, and had a very sweet childhood. His father, Joseph Richart, was a chef chocolatier himself. Speaking to Michel was a joy to me, as an admitted chocoholic. Michel doesn’t only put a lot of passion into his work, and has a remarkable imagination that he uses to create new chocolates, but he also impressed me with the love and care for his "friends." This is how Michel calls his customers, the tasters of his chocolates. New Yorkers can find his incredible number chocolates with different flavors at Richart Chocolates boutique located at 7E 55th street, New York City.
CZ: Michel, your father was a master chocolatier as well. When did you decide to take further the family business?
Michel Richart: I’ve been born in a family where the biggest passion was chocolate and I knew that this is exactly what I want to do as well. And I am not crazy about the business side of it, but I love working with chocolate. This is what I like best and I put a lot of passion into it.
CZ: How many stores do you have around the world?
Michel Richart: We have 15 shops in Paris, Lyon, Milan, Barcelona, Rabat, San Francisco, Boston, San Juan, Tokyo, Seoul, and not the last—New York. But not the number of shops is important for us here. What we strive for is pleasing our customers by offering them the best chocolate we can make.
CZ: Where do you get your inspiration from?
Michel Richart: I had the possibility to find an inspiration, and it’s all depending on the time—sometimes it’s very easy to find your inspiration to create new products and lines, some other times it can be very difficult to do it. It’s not like someone can decide to be inspired today or some other day, it just happens or not. And if I feel I’m not inspired at a certain time, I just stop everything and try at a different time. It’s mostly like art; or having talent or not. It’s not something that one can build. I can wake up one morning with an idea, go and try it. I can make the ganache, and then think about the best infusion to go with it. It’s all about balance.
CZ: Are you still very involved in the chocolate-making process?
Michel Richart: I am the "chef chocolatier." This is my first job, and the part of my job that I prefer. I’m always trying to come up with new ideas and new products, in order to please my clients. I’m trying to bring joy to people’s life. Because life can be very exciting, but unfortunately this doesn’t happen every day. And I feel like I have the possibility to bring happiness in people’s life, that’s what I want to do.
CZ: You have organized your collections of chocolate in seven categories of aromas. Which are those and what differentiates them?
Michel Richart: The first aromatic family is the balsamic one. And don’t get fooled by the name, balsamic is not related to vinegar. Balsamic is an adjective, and it relates to making people more relaxed. That’s why we’re using cocoa that’s not too strong, we add some vanilla, licorice, and that’s just an example. The second aromatic family is the roasted one, and here we use roasted nuts that we mix in our pralines. In this family we use caramel as well. The third one is the fruit family, and here we have a lot of options. We use mango, passion fruit, raspberries, chestnut, and also almonds—because when they’re not roasted, they have a totally different taste; include them in the fruit family. The fourth one is citrus, and here we have for example orange, tangerine, lemon, and grapefruit. They are fruits, but a different kind of fruit, and they are so many that I decided they deserve a distinct category. The next family is the herbal one, and here we include basil, verbena, green tea, fennel, the sixth family is the floral with rose, geranium, ylang-ylang, lavender. This gives us the possibility to mix different flower aromas into a very nice bouquet. Sometimes it’s difficult to get to the right balance, because the aromas can be too strong or not strong enough. The next aromatic family is the spiced one : cardamom, ginger, nutmeg…This one is very difficult to balance too, because spices can sometimes be too strong or too subtle. That’s why I decided to make seven categories—for the tasters, my customers, chocolate lovers. Because a good chocolatier doesn’t only have to know how to make chocolate, but also to appreciate it. This collection is called Petits RICHART Intense, it has 49 different aromas: 7 families with 7 different aromas in each family.
CZ: Richart creates each year a specific theme. What’s the news this year?
Michel Richart: I have decided to have a different theme every year, and to create each collection based upon this theme. This year’s theme is Eternelle Méditerranée, and it’s meant to make our customers travel around the Mediterranean Sea when they taste our chocolates. We create a certain numbers of chocolates for each collection/season, and they are all made using different ingredients from different areas around the Mediterranean Sea. This way, our chocolates will take the taster on a journey around the Mediterranean Sea. When they will taste them they will recognize something specific to a different area. The first season has three new tastes, the second collection has three, and the holiday collection, that we will launch this November, will have seven new chocolates.
CZ: So what are the summer specials?
Michel Richart: We launched this summer the chocolates called Under the Sun of Provence, which is a chocolate made with apricot and peach with a hint of thyme. The other one is called In the Tuscany Garden and it’s made with ganache infused with olive oil and basil, meant to take the taster in Italy. The third one is called One Night in Marrakesh (the region in North Africa) and it is made with mandarin and infused with fresh mint.
CZ: What will be new this fall and winter?
Michel Richart: For the fall we will travel to Turkey (fig and ginger), Sicily (green praliné with cardamom), and Crete (chestnut with ouzo), a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. Our holiday collection will take the chocolate lovers on a journey through Spain, Maroc, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Corsica, and Provence.
We are using the best cocoa beans from 15 different countries around the world and never blend different origins or varietals. For me, chocolate is an art of living. Bonne dégustation!
