Ambiance Chocolate

“You start with a citrusy note. Then you’re hit with the caramel and then just at the end when you think the feeling is already gone, you get this surprising hit of heat in your throat. And you think, ‘Oh, there’s the jalapeno. I thought it wasn’t there.”

What Beata Brutovska describes is not a glass of wine, or a fancy cup of coffee. She’s speaking of the experience of eating a jalapeno caramel chocolate from her shop, Ambiance Chocolat.

Handmade using unique, finely tuned recipes, Beata boasts that her chocolates are unlike any other in the city because of this gradual development of layered flavours, along with the careful consideration and matching of what Beata calls the taste profiles of single-origin chocolates. Each chocolate comes from a specific region, mostly South America, and boasts a distinct flavour. “One might have a more deep, fruity taste. Another might be more earthy,” Beata says. “What we do is pair these taste profiles with their best counterpart. Let’s say there’s a chocolate from Venezuela that has a red berry flavour to it without adding anything. So prepare that with a raspberry purée and what you get is a really punchy burst of flavour in your mouth.”