Our background

We’re a young company with a long past, and a small team with a big heart. Here, we share the story of how it all began... Did you know that the Belgian Chocolate Makers company is born in the course of a complicated period, during the corona crisis and the first Belgian lockdown?

Elisabetta Passafaro is graduated from Accademia Maestri Cioccolatieri Italiani. At the end of her training session, she has been awarded Master 2018 with an amazing 94/100 notation. During her studies, she traveled abroad and made an incredible, exciting and educational journey in Brazil that take her through the world of cocoa. She talked to the cocoa growers and producers, slept in the jungle, share meals with the Amazons and enjoyed some great chocolate tastings with many South American researchers. It is precisely during this experience that Elisabetta realized that chocolate was her passion and tattooed a big cocoa pod on her shoulder! 

Back to Europe, Elisabetta wanted to learn more about Belgian chocolate. She involved herself in an Erasmus+ program and, mid 2018, she arrived in Belgium. She already had an extensive experience in chocolate making and she did her internship at the Zaabar chocolaterie. Does destiny exist? Zaabar was declared bankrupted a few days before the first lock down. End of March 2020, when three and a half billion people were confined in some way around the planet, Elisabetta lost her job but stayed in Belgium and turned her life into a big challenge. She decided to setup a new company, to launch Chocomeli, her own chocolate brand, and to share her true passion for handmade chocolate.

Elisabetta partnered with Patricia Lafargue and Stéphane Perrin, two colleagues met at Zaabar chocolaterie. All together, they started to build an exciting and promising challenge. Patricia managed several stores in the past and she is also graduated in pastry. Stéphane has a long experience of international business management. Within a few days, they found a suitable building in the heart of Brussels to launch their first chocolate store. Using their own savings, and without investors, they setup the company in a few days. The administrative and financial paperwork having been sorted out, Elisabetta, Patricia and Stéphane committed to build a sustainable business with a legacy they could be proud of. That’s where our 100% handmade in Brussels promise comes in. From the beginning, they received a great support from ING bank, Grenke and Finance Brussels. The moment of truth arrived and, within a few weeks, they created Chocomeli, their own brand. The small team learned quickly about overcoming adversity as they had to go thru a lot of issues but finally...

The dream came true on the 8th of June 2020 when their first store opened in the heart of Brussels!

With everything ready to go, the small team bit the bullet and ordered 4 tons of cocoa in one go - without having any customers! (Truth be told, they were a little scared they’d have to eat the chocolate themselves.) Today, more than two year after, business is really good! Thanks to our loyal clients, The Belgian Chocolate Makers is growing fast: using our e-commerce website we’re selling handmade, premium and tasty Belgian chocolate in more than 35 countries and – due to popular demand – we now make homemade macarons and ice creams too. We’re working hard towards our sustainability goals and we’re supporting the farmers of the plantations where come from the cocoa beans used to produce our premium Belgian chocolates. Our ambition is big so our effort should be even bigger!

At The Belgian Chocolate Makers, our handmade and handcrafted chocolate is produced by our chocolate maker, Elisabetta Passafaro. Don't look for industrial chocolates in our store, we don't have any! We are one of the very few true artisan chocolate makers in Brussels; far away from the candies stores of Grand'Place or even the numerous industrial brands who pretend to be local.

In fact, we are even the only real certified handcraft chocolate maker in the district of 1000 Brussels. That information can be easily checked from the official website www.belgium.be.

At the origin of the taste, there is the bean, and all the work that lets explode all its flavors. From roasting to conching, here is the birth of aromas. We partner with François Deremiens to explore and propose to our clients the finest and original beans from all over the world. From the Big Monkeys Valley in Congo to the Tsachilas indians villages in Ecuador, François is selecting for us some particular and rares cocoa beans. A discovery of nuances and colors in the heart of plantations. The roasting is made by François and his team at his factory located in Jamoigne (Belgium).

Elisabetta is assisted by several learners and/or trainees from local schools to produce our handmade chocolates. We partnered with Actiris Brussels and local schools like EFP and Ceria to welcome some new trainees and apprentices every month. As well, regular Erasmus+ trainees are enjoying a few months with us all along the year.

We recruit trainees and apprentices from local schools under supervision of SFPME.
Our licence number is B/11587/A10/W00.
If you wish to apply for an internship with us (2 years) please feel free to email your CV and motivation letter to [email protected].

All our handmade chocolates are produced in our store by Elisabetta Passafaro and sold under our brand Chocomeli. If you refer to the first name of our chocolate maker then you should easily understand the reason why the brand Chocomeli came out of our imagination...

To produce our handmade chocolates, we only use high quality cocoa beans from all around the world. From Costa Rica to India, we choose the rarest beans to develop all the flavors in an original chocolate with an unique taste. Making chocolate is an art. At the origin of the taste, there is the bean, and all the work that lets explode all its flavors. From roasting to conching, here is the birth of aromas. Our handmade chocolates are guaranteed 100% made in Brussels with selected premium Belgian chocolate!

In store, to complete our handmade chocolate collection, we also propose to our clients some homemade macarons without gluten, some homemade Brussels waffles, some natural and bio fruit juices and some delicious artisanal ice creams and sorbets. Everything 100% natural. Everything 100% made with passion in Brussels.

One year after we opened our first store in the heart of Brussels, it became obvious that we needed to develop our business and to bring our brand abroad. We learned a lot from our e-commerce sale results and Canadian residents are clearly one of our best clients abroad. With these figures in mind, we took the decision that our second store will be located in Canada and especially in Montréal.

We are currently working with Hub.Brussels and the Belgian embassy in Montréal to prepare one of our most ambitious project since we created The Belgian Chocolate Makers.

Making chocolate is taking a lot of our time but we also love to share our passion. For this reason, we organize every day some public workshops. We can host up to 2x30 guests during these daily events. We also organize some private workshops, teambuidling events, bachelorette parties, kids birthday parties and much more!!! More details about our workshops are available here.

Our public chocolate workshops can be booked online using GetYourGuide, Civitatis,  Viator, TripAdvisor or AirBnb Experiences.
You can also buy voucher(s) for our workshops here.

At The Belgian Chocolate Makers we propose to our clients a great collection of handmade chocolates created in our store and in front of our clients. Therefore, our daily public workshops are also a great opportunity to meet our chocolate experts and to speak with them about our delicious chocolates. Pralines, truffles, orangettes, mendiants and many more surprises are waiting for you! You will be truly amazed!!!

Undoubtedly, there is no better chocolate than the chocolate made by Belgian chocolatiers. The Belgian chocolatiers have been in business for more than a century in a country whose capital has more chocolate factories than any other city on earth. Brussels is the nirvana for any chocolate aficionado, but try not to be tempted by the creamy chocolate fountains in the city center’s candy stores for tourists and instead come to visit our store and workshop. Speak with our chocolate maker, Elisabetta Passafaro, and let's share our passion for our Chocomeli chocolate brand. 

If you live in Brussels, you can now order some of our handmade chocolates using Deliveroo and Uber Eats.

To produce our handmade chocolates, we only use high quality cocoa beans from all around the world. From Costa Rica to India, François Deremiens is choosing for us the rarest beans to develop all the flavors in an original chocolate with an unique taste. Making chocolate is an art. At the origin of the taste, there is the bean, and all the work that lets explode all its flavors. From roasting to conching, here is the birth of aromas. Our handmade Chocomeli brand is really 100% made in Belgium!

We could buy our chocolate from industrial firms like Valhrona, Puratos or Barry Callebaut. After all, most of the chocolate makers do that... But we preferred to partner with François Deremiens. He is an autodidact in the world of chocolate and we love that! From a passion, from a hobby to the beginning, he made it his job. From a small workshop of 18m² in 2005, the company has expanded to operate on two workshops of about 400m². In 2013, he was taken over by Gault et Millau among the 25 best chocolatiers in Belgium and among the 25 best pastry chefs in Belgium. And in 2016, among the 10 best chocolatiers and the 10 best pastry chefs. We are proud to partner with him to create our chocolates and to select the best cocoa beans to use for our production.

Our dark chocolates are produced using a flavoursome limited cacao from Philippines.
Read about our dark cacao from here.

Our milk chocolates are produced using a cacao from Congo.
Read about our milk cacao from here.

For our chocolate workshops, we use a limited cacao production from Haiti.

For the ruby and NXT chocolates, we buy it from Barry Callebaut.

To produce our Chocomeli bars, broken tablets, mendiants, figurines, pralines and truffles we love to use the tempering machines built by Selmi.

Thanks to a partnership with Selmi and the leasing company Grenke, we can enjoy the benefits of 5 modern continuous tempering machines to produce our delicious handcrafted chocolates in our Brussels store. 

We have a few enemies within the little world of Belgian chocolate, especially the industrial chocolate makers who pretend to produce handcrafted chocolates, since we always express loudly what we think. True facts are not always appreciated! We can also count on a huge amount of supporters! There are some precious people who helped us a lot to achieve our goals and set up our business model so quickly. We wanted to give a big thank you to all who help getting The Belgian Chocolate Makers off the ground. Their support and efforts for our new business certainly contributed a lot to our success, and we want to thank them for that, especially all our loyal clients. Thank you for being a part of our family! We are very grateful for your continued patronage because we wouldn’t be here without our loyal customers. They could have chosen any other chocolate makers, but we appreciate that they have stuck with us.

We wish to express a big thank you as well to Finance Brussels for helping our development. We wish to show courtesy to the ING Business team, who has always been on our side since the beginning of our adventure, and Grenke, who financed a big part of our machinery costs. It was really challenging for both of them to be confident in our project especially during this complicated lockdown period but they have been very reactive and so helpful.

Thanks a lot to all who helped us to make our project a reality and who continue to fuel our passion every day!
You're just amazing!

Happiness is German engineering, Italian cooking and Belgian chocolate!

Meet Elisabetta and Patricia, our chocolate makers, discover the wonders of Belgian chocolate and learn how to make these tasty treats with one of the very few real chocolate makers based in Brussels. Enjoy an approx. 1 hour chocolate workshop with the guidance of our expert chocolatiers and have a go at making amazing handmade chocolates yourself.

Discover and taste our cacao beans, learn about the origins of our beans and make belgian chocolates with us!