Alain Chartier, Glacier, Chocolatier, Pâtissier

Bean to tablet in Theix-Noyalo

Cocoa arrives here as beans and leaves as tablets. The Theix-Noyalo workshop, opened in 2021, is built on a bean-to-bar approach, taking selected organic beans through to the finished bar rather than buying in couverture and moulding it. The sourcing is organic and fair-trade, and the chain stays in house.

That makes this address different from the older Alain Chartier shop in Vannes, which is the better-known pâtisserie and ice-cream counter. This one is the chocolate project. The house is a Relais Desserts member boutique for 2026.

The house calls the approach Bean and Bar, and the phrase does real work here. Bean selection, roasting and conching all sit behind this counter rather than at a supplier factory, which is what allows the organic and fair-trade sourcing to mean something specific rather than to be a label applied at the end.

Chocolate, pâtisserie and the ice-cream side

Chartier works as glacier as much as chocolatier and holds a world ice-cream championship title, so the frozen work sits alongside the bars rather than behind them. The sorbets carry the more experimental streak, running to combinations such as cactus, prickly pear and ginger.

The pâtisserie completes the trio. Read the shop as three crafts under one roof, weighted towards cocoa here in a way the Vannes address is not, with a production room behind the retail counter rather than a dining room in front of it. Nothing is plated and nothing is served to a table; everything is made to be chosen, wrapped and carried out.

Buy the bars, then look at the frozen counter

The tablets are the reason this branch exists, so start there and ask which origins are currently in production. Because the chocolate is made from the bean on site, the range shifts with what has been roasted rather than staying fixed.

From there, the boxed chocolates and the pâtissier's sweets fill out a gift. If the visit falls in warm weather, the ice creams and sorbets are the other half of the house identity and the part with a championship behind them. This is a browse-and-choose stop rather than a sit-down one, so plan it as a purchase rather than as a meal, and allow time to be talked through the current bars.