When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile. When it comes to a chocolate café that serves anything and everything to do with chocolates – like chocolate brownies, chocolate ganaches, pralines, cakes, drinks, chocolate samosas and chocolate pizzas to name a few – let’s face it, a little bit of chocolate indulgence is absolutely in order.
Srinath Balachandran (SB) holds the enviable position of founder and owner of ΖÜΚÀ®, Pondicherry’s first chocolates-and-chocolate-desserts boutique. “I love chocolates, I was a day dreamer right from school days and would sit in classes and fancy starting my own food business,” he recalls. ΖÜΚÀ®, earlier known as Choco-la, started in 2003 as a hobby when SB prepared chocolates in a friend’s kitchen and put them up for sale in his mother’s flower boutique. Initially the idea started with only three varieties of chocolates along with far fetched visions of an extensive chocolate boutique. Following a chocolate training in France under Master Chocolatier JeanLuc Klugesherz in 2006, SB returned home to realize his chocolate dream in 2009.
To get you started, ΖÜΚÀ®’s most popular product is the 54 degree Celsius hot chocolate. “We have chocoholics come from various places to enjoy a cup of the hot chocolate,” SB informs us. No surprises in that this product is patented and is extremely well known. The Chocolate Pakoras are also a big hit at the store. They are the first in the country, a trade mark product of ΖÜΚÀ®. There’s something for everyone and SB strongly believes in creating a chocolate for every walk-in. “We have chocolate delicacies ranging from Rs.10 going up to approximately Rs.120.”
So what else is on the menu, you ask. “Firstly, I do not have a standard printed menu,” SB clarifies. “Like in the west, we created a visual display menu that makes it easy for customers to see the product, choose and buy. I don’t know if I will come up with a menu as we have a lot of chocolate delicacies that have found their place in our display counters since inception. When we started we displayed about 12 to 15 products. Today we have over 230 chocolate delicacies of which, at any given time, over 60 chocolate products are on display on a daily basis.”
And as if these displays are not enough to tease your chocolate palate, the café has more treats in store for the eye. SB modestly describes ΖÜΚÀ® as “a simple looking shop,” but be prepared to be mesmerized by all the chocolate decorations that adorn the boutique and their current false ceiling filled with over 800 miniature chocolate butterflies stuck to it. This is a first of its kind in the world. In the past there has been a chocolate Statue of Liberty made using 600 Kgs of chocolate, a 12-foot long Vintage Chocolate Train and even a Chocolate Ganesha. “We have had customers ask us if the chairs in the shop are made of chocolate too.” The boutique also has a number of profound ‘Chocolate Quotes’ printed on glass and fixed to the walls that are an interesting read.
SB explains to us that there are two kinds of chocolate raw materials – Chocolate Couverture and Chocolate Compound. “Chocolate Couverture has Cocoa Butter added to it,” he says, “while this is replaced with Vegetable Fat in the Chocolate Compound Version with a price structure making it easy on pockets for a majority clientele interested in chocolate making/training.” Understandably, sourcing quality chocolate raw material especially back in 2003 was very challenging and good ones are often expensive. Between 2003 and 2005 he recalls using 135 Kgs of chocolate raw material in total, but today they use close to a massive 8 tonnes of chocolate per annum for a single shop. The present challenge SB faces is striking a balance between pricing and quality without compromising on taste and presentation.
For this dreamer, his chocolate factory has been all about persistence and learning. “When I started in 2003, I only made mistakes. I failed many times, there was a time when I wanted to wrap up the chocolate dream and call it quits. Thankfully I didn’t do that then. I made so many mistakes that now people have started calling my mistakes chocolates!” His advice for budding food entrepreneurs is to power your dreams with passion, the journey may be long but the key is to stay patient and have faith. It is important to welcome critics as they help you grow.
Chocoholics will be pleased to learn that ΖÜΚÀ® has lots of plans for the future. “We are planning a ‘version 02’ ΖÜΚÀ® for Chennai in 2016 for which the work has begun,” SB reveals and adds, “we believe it is not just chocolate but truly anything and everything connected to chocolate and beyond just chocolate.” He also predicts their stores together will use well over 15 tonnes of chocolate per annum! We wish them chock-full of sweet success on their ventures.
ΖÜΚÀ® (a unit of Ebony Foods Private Limited) is located at 319 Mission Street, Pondicherry, 605001. The store is open 7 days a week from 09:30Hrs to 22:00Hrs. Do visit their Facebook page, and Srinath can be contacted at srinath.balachandran@gmail.com
Images Courtesy Of : ΖÜΚÀ®