Alain Chartier Chocolaterie Artisanale BIO Bean to Bar

Organic cacao, taken from bean to tablet

Every tablet in this Theix-Noyalo boutique starts as a bean, in an organic and fair-trade workshop where the chocolate is the whole point rather than one product among several. The Origin Collection reads the sourcing most clearly, with cacao from Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, São Tomé, Brazil, Peru, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, each kept separate rather than blended into a house style.

Some bars are pure expressions, including a 100% Grué from Madagascar and Côte d’Ivoire, while others work through percentages: 85%, 72.5%, 50%. The range then sorts by type across dark, milk, blond and white, so a Côte d’Ivoire 50% dark milk sits near a République Dominicaine lait 41%, a Blond 35% with fleur de sel and cacao nibs, and a Blanc 35% with Madagascar vanilla. Origin, percentage and method are what you choose between.

A specialist counter with a Brittany accent

This is a chocolate shop rather than a café, so the experience is choosing tablets at a counter. The Brittany Collection is where the global cacao meets local reference: crêpes dentelles worked into a Pérou 70%, fleur de sel, toasted buckwheat, and spice blends named Epices Celtiques and Epices Des Corsaires, several of them built on the house Chocolait milk chocolate.

The Gourmet Collection adds inclusions, mostly around Peruvian cacao, with almonds, hazelnuts, candied ginger and coffee. A separate Bien-être line covers vegan, sugar-free and alternative-sweetener bars, including a rice-based tablet with puffed rice, a Madagascar 70% sweetened with coconut sugar, and a Pérou 39% with six fruits. Alain Chartier’s wider work spans pâtisserie, chocolate and frozen desserts, and he holds both a Meilleur Ouvrier de France title from 2000 and a world championship in frozen desserts from 2003; this address is the organic bean-to-bar side of it.

How to choose a bar

Work by origin first. A single-origin tablet at a mid percentage is the clearest introduction, and comparing two origins at the same percentage tells you more about the sourcing than any single bar can on its own.

Then decide whether you want the cacao alone or with something in it. The pure expressions, particularly the 100% Grué, are the most demanding and the most revealing. The Brittany bars are the ones to take home as a souvenir of where the shop stands, especially the crêpes dentelles and the toasted buckwheat. The Gourmet inclusions suit anyone who prefers texture with their chocolate, and the Bien-être line covers dietary needs without stepping outside the same organic sourcing.