Chocolate Guru

  • Chocolate Guru

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    I am The Chocolate Guru!

    I’m involved in so many aspects in the chocolate universe, from the plantation to the Bean to Bar to the dessert in both practical and guiding roles, that it seemed an appropriate name.

    It is, for me, the most complex and curious ingredient i have ever found and never ceases to surprise me. It gives me life, helps me value it and want to share it with others.

    The more years I work with it the deeper i fall in love! It is an ingredient like no other / not just for the sensual complexity of it-s flavour  or the stimulative search for understanding it, but also its aesthetic spectrum as a medium to decorate and sculpt like glass or clay to please the eye and the mind.  Each field is so massive that one can wander through them for a lifetime and not be bored!

    Cadf0600-editar

  • Humble Beginnings

    My mum was one of the worst cooks I know. We were not well-off and in the UK, food was basic and mostly tinned!!

    I had no idea about ‘real food’ (does fish and chips count?) and even less about ‘haute gastronomie’ and had lots of eating issues, so it’s quite strange for our family that I became a chef. I wanted to be a mechanical engineer!

    Xg0006c

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    1969 - Biography

  • Late 1980

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    Training in London

    It turns out I like playing and building things and working things out and fixing things. And I have a sweet tooth!

    I did my catering apprenticeship in London and moved out of home at 16. Well, that’s when I moved out of my dad’s place. I’d already moved out of my ‘home’ (mum, sisters and brother) when I was 13 and left them in Wales. My parents had divorced when i was 9.

    So I was on my own in the big city, I’d finished my training and It wasn’t long before I found myself working in a Michelin starred restaurant. The intensity and borderline obsessiveness clicked something in me!

    It was here that I realized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I knew it then.

    I looked for the best Pastry Chef in the UK.. he was Robert Mey and I did my classic French pastry training under his guidance.

    I then found someone else I admired and followed him – Patrick Woodside. He recommended I go to Paris, which I did and managed to get a stage at Joel Robuchon’s’ Jamin. The guy working next to me in the kitchen was…..Gordon Ramsay.

    Ram

  • First Michelin Experience

    Gordon and myself met up a year or so later when he was looking for a pastry chef at his restaurant that he had just opened: The Aubergine. I started the next day ….and gave it my all;  blood, sweat and tears for the following 3 years!.

    I was still missing something, in my cooking and my personal life, so I said goodbye and went to look for it.

    I found it, in the end, with the incredible Roca family in a little village in Catalunya, which is where I still live now.

    An accident left me 6 months in a wheelchair and my right-hand man at that time was a young Jordi Roca, who took his opportunity and filled my shoes admirably!

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    1990s

  • 2007 - Chocolate Guru

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    Damian Allsop Chocolates

    Then in 2007 I went to the UK and my Catalan partner Anna and myself started Damian Allsop Chocolates: doing my signature water ganaches for high-end restaurants and shops.

    When we closed this 8 years later, Jordi bought my machines off me and invited me back to Can Roca. and I did the bonbons for el Celler for a couple of years, then Jordi suggested I make the chocolate itself.

    Then I helped Jordi set up and run Casa Cacao in Girona which helped turn me into a real chocolatier!

    When I left there after 8 years, I hooked up with the company who made the cacao refiners, my good friend Bhavani, the nicest guy in the business!!

    We started doing some classes at his production plant in New Jersey, which went very well, and I am now making this available for many more and which you can request in the services* section of this website.

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  • Teaching & Mentorship

    Now I see my new path as a teacher and guide to help others, individuals and businesses,  through this minefield and find the beauty in their work and ultimately themselves.

    It’s not just  a job.

    Xg00018

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    Now

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