Chocolatier Melinda Varga: Making chocolate pralines is an art

Chocolate is high in demand ahead of St. Valentine’s Day, and sweetshops have pulled out all the stops to attract customers. However the real gourmets will head for one of the select chocolate shops that produce their own selection of products. One such shop is tucked away in Prague’s Kbely district and attracts passers-by with the eloquent name Passion Chocolate. Over a cup of creamy dark chocolate I asked its owner – Melinda – how chocolate became one of her life’s passions.

Melinda Varga, photo: Passion Chocolate

“My name is Melinda Varga and originally I am from Hungary, where I met my Belgian husband. However as a consultant he travels a lot and so we moved to the Czech Republic. We regularly make trips to Belgium and it was there that I saw people working with chocolate. It was really amazing for me to see them work with chocolate as if it were a kind of art. And I decided that this is what I wanted to do. So we found this beautiful house, and created this beautiful shop. We found the right products for us and opened shop. We actually started with tablet chocolate and our chocolate supplier convinced us to make our own pralines as well. What you should know is that the chocolate is from Belgium and France so we can guarantee the quality.”

So all this is imported chocolate – you don’t make it here?

“It comes from Belgium and we melt it here in the kitchen and transform it into tablets or pralines.”

What kind of pralines do you offer?

“We have three main lines –one is alcohol, the second is fruit and the third is nuts.”

Catering to adventurous clients: pralines with goose liver, goat cheese or onions

You have also made headlines by offering clients very unusual kinds of pralines –rather adventurous I should say- what are they?

“Well, the unusual pralines are mainly for parties –because they contain goose liver, goat cheese or honey these pralines are very sensitive and the expiry date is very short –two or three days. So it is not something we can have in the shop.”

But you make them to order –when people ask for them…

Photo: Passion Chocolate

“Most of the time they don’t ask, because they don’t know what we make. But we make suggestions and then they usually want to taste it –and if they like it, they will order that variety. So we have to lead the way, we have to show them what’s possible.”

Where did you get the idea of making pralines filled with onions or goose liver? Was that your idea?

“No, not everything is my idea. I seek inspiration from the Chocolate Academy. I go every year to Belgium and sometimes to England and Hungary and it is there that I improve my knowledge.”

Does that mean that the world of chocolate is ruled by fashion?

“Oh yes, definitely it is.”

So what is in now?

“That’s really difficult. From my point of view what I really like and appreciate is the design of the praline, not just the taste. And as you can see we have beautifully coloured pralines so that is our trademark in a way, that’s how people can recognize us. We are different from all the others, but of course it also means that we are a little bit more expensive since producing those kinds of pralines is more time-consuming, it is not so quick and easy. And taste-wise we produce the kinds of pralines that we believe to be good and that we think people will like. And I think people really like the pralines that we make.”

Photo: Passion Chocolate

When you are making something very unusual –like the onion fillings – do you try it yourself and think OK, this works or no, I won’t offer them this?

“Yes, definitely, when we are making a new taste then everyone has to taste – my family, my friends, and we also organize events to which we invite clients or people from the street to help us, to taste what we have made and to give us feed-back.”

What are some of the surprising combinations that you yourself have found tasty?

“That’s difficult….maybe it is the gianduja with coriander and caramel. Of course, coriander is a spice but combined with the gianduja and the caramel I think it is really nice, really special.”

What does it take to make good chocolate pralines?

“The ingredients are very important. It is essential that you get the best possible ingredients. It means that I can trust the product to taste always the same, for the expiry date to be long enough, the texture to be good enough … and I think the rest is the combination, how we combine different tastes together.”

How many of you make them?

“There are two of us working in the kitchen –Helena and me, and the machines(laughs).

So can we walk around the store now, and if you could describe some of the stuff that is on sale ?

Photo: Passion Chocolate

“Well, as I mentioned before, we have three praline lines –alcohol, fruit and nuts. The alcohol ones contain Grappa, Prugna, Limoncello, Bombardino and Punch liquors. And in the fruit pralines line we are offering a very nice raspberry praline, maracuja –that’s one of my favourite kinds, and the lime –people love that one. Also there’s the black currant variety – that’s nice for people who do not like their pralines to be very sweet. The lime, the black currant and the maracuja are not sweet. “

And how do you find Czech clients–are they adventurous enough to try something completely new?

“From my point of view yes, I think that they are quite open and willing to try new things. Of course it is not always so, people who do not like alcohol are afraid to taste that line and then we have to convince them and push them a little bit to try it, but they always have a positive feedback.”

This is actually quite an out-of-the-way- place where your exclusive shop is located –how do people find you?

“Well, they live her mostly and walk or drive by and see the shop, but we also try to advertise in the local papers or hand out fliers.”

Our clients can come and make their own chocolate

Do you offer your clients anything special?

Photo: Passion Chocolate

“Yes, we have a boutique shop and a brand new kitchen and a showroom so we organize workshops-they are called A Chocolate Experience – and companies and individuals come and enjoy the shop area and then we go to the kitchen and everyone can make their own chocolate tablet that they can decorate as they wish, with letters or different types of ingredients and then they can take it home as a souvenir –a nice memory of their time here.”

And is there a lot of interest from the public?

“Oh yes, there is, definitely. They are happy to come. You can find pictures of it on our facebook. We’ve even had customers from abroad, from Luxembourg or even from South Africa – they found us via google and they really enjoyed it. We also had a party where we offered a jazz band – so there was live music…”

Is your chocolate addictive? Do you have clients who keep coming back because they are addicted to your pralines?

“Yes, luckily we have customers who keep coming back for more and who give us feed-back on whether the products are good enough and what we could improve and that we should try this or that and so on. So yes, we have regulars and they are very nice and helpful. “

And when someone comes to you and wants to order something special –how flexible are you?

Photo: Passion Chocolate

“Our philosophy is to be as flexible as possible, so if the client has a special request we try to do it. It may not always be possible, but we always try. We always try to make the customer happy, though sometimes it is technically not possible to create something.”

So you would put any kind of filling in a praline if they asked for it?

“It depends. If someone asked for something really crazy, that I think would not taste good, I would not do it. The praline has to be eatable, it has to be enjoyable, otherwise I cannot give our name to it. Because I believe that we have to like the pralines that we sell –otherwise it is difficult to believe in the product. ”