Beginning his York’s Chocolate Story (YSC) career as a tour guide (and part time Santa Claus during festive season), Mark Watson is now working as YSC’s Head Chocolatier after eight years of rising the ranks. But what does it involve to work in this coveted position? And how exactly do the chocolatier’s come up with and create their chocolate masterpieces? Keep reading if you want to find out, as Mark spills all in this delicious, chocolate-themed interview…
Mark first explained his journey to becoming Head Chocolatier: “ I started as a tour guide, worked as Duty Manager, and I was even Santa Clause in the grotto – I needed a lot of padding for that! And then I did things like writing the guidebook and creating walking tours, but I eventually moved into chocolate, which is kind of the most sought after job.’
I asked Mark if he had always intended on becoming a chocolatier: “No not really! Once I had tried it though, I realised that there’s a lot of satisfaction and fulfilment from actually making a product from start to finish… We come up with the chocolates, flavours and the designs, and then they go into the shop and are sold. So from start to finish we’re producing it, and I just found that side of it very satisfying.’
I then ask Mark what a day at work looks like: “It’s a bit of everything with this job!…
Start of the day is always tempering the chocolate; you have to do this before you can work with it. We have these big old fashioned wheel temperers, with a wheel spinning round and a spout coming off the wheel, they take about 30-45 minutes to temper.
“We get on with making chocolate for the shop, chocolate for the tours, and then we try and have showpieces on display for the public. We’ve got a chocolate Totoro out there at the moment…”
“We often have birthday parties and hen do’s, so we have a couple of late nights a week here till 10pm doing master classes and things. So it’s pretty varied really, a lot more varied than a regular chocolatier just working in a chocolate shop.”
The ideas for the chocolate flavours come from the whole staff, and even the public:
“We do often get requests from the public. There’s been a lot of people asking about pistachio chocolate so after Christmas we’ll bring that in.” In fact, Mark’s favourite flavour comes from the public selection box, apple cinnamon ganache.
“I always try to get the other chocolatiers involved in coming up with ideas because it’s nice for them to have a bit of ownership and to make a product and see it sell. The only problem is when someone first becomes a chocolatier they tend to want to go as crazy as possible with the flavours and you sometimes have to pull them back.
“You have to bear in mind whatever flavour you put inside is competing against the flavour of the chocolate, so it might sound nice to begin with but when you put it in your mouth it can just taste like a mess.”
YCS uses Belgian Coveteur chocolate, which contains cocoa butter instead of palm or vegetable oil. They use fresh ingredients for their fillings, no preservatives, which gives their handmade chocolate such a delicious taste:
“It’s not sitting in a warehouse for several months before it’s being sent to the shop for sale, it’s going straight to the fridge downstairs and usually being bought and eaten within a week of it being made.”
However, another thing which sets their chocolate apart is the collaborative process in which new ideas are made: “it can be several days from having the idea before you even start trying the product, and that’s just in a small kitchen where they’re constantly trying out ideas, whereas here if we don’t have a product in we can just run to the supermarket, buy a product just to test it out and see what it’s like.”
The chocolatier’s are currently about to roll out a Christmas selection, with a delicious sounding array of flavours including mince pie, cinnamon cookie, marzipan, Irish cream and mulled wine.
The flavours aren’t always quite as delightful, however: “Last summer I wasn’t here, so none of this is my fault, but they did a cheeseburger flavour chocolate.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, YCS’s flavours during Halloween were even more peculiar: We made a baked bean and marmite ganache… Again, I wasn’t here, so it wasn’t my fault.”
I closed the conversation by asking Mark for the sweetest perk of his chocolate career.This question had an obvious and immediate answer: “Free chocolate!”
“What’s your least favourite thing?”, I asked. The answer was again obvious: “Being pestered for chocolate all the time.”
Luckily we didn’t have to pester, as Mark kindly sent us on our way with a bag of chocolates, which we can confirm were absolutely delicious!
With thanks to Mark and York’s Chocolate Story for making this interview possible.