The sweet life: a chocolatier’s journey from banking to bonbons

The chocolate industry isn’t as simple as it looks in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Chocolat Moderne, a modern-day factory, resembles an assembly line, with almost every piece of equipment on wheels at its home on the ninth floor of an office building in the Flatiron District.

Chocolat Moderne is a chocolate lover’s dream, with hand-painted artisan chocolates, coupling the craft of the chocolatier with non-traditional flavors.

“This chocolate is not just any candy. It is a culinary work of art,” said Joan Coukos, chocolatier and CEO of Chocolat Moderne.

Coukos wasn’t always the chocolate aficionado that she is now. Coukos only picked up chocolate making in 2000 when vacationing in Brussels. After finding chocolate molds in an antique market,
she said that she was intrigued.

“I didn’t know anything about chocolate,” she said. “I didn’t know it could be trendy.”

When she returned to the United States, Coukos started experimenting with different chocolate ganache flavors in “her tiny Manhattan kitchen.” At the time, Coukos was working at Chase Bank and the only audience for her creations was her coworkers, who she said fell in love with them.

With the JP Morgan and Chase Bank merger, Coukos found herself without a job. Even though she was offered jobs at other companies, Coukos said that she decided to take a risk and follow her dream of becoming a chocolatier.

Since then, Coukos has made a name for herself with her odd combinations and nontraditional flavors, such as the popular grapefruit-caramel bonbon, a fruity caramel ganache filling covered in a smooth dark chocolate. Some other unlikely flavors include a shiso and lime ganache, tomato-lemon caramel, olives and sea salt with caramel, and a dark chocolate tart with wild Italian cherries in a
vodka-infused sour cherry syrup.

The best selling chocolate is the Sea Salt Moderne Bar, which comes in six different toffee flavors.

For Coukos, every experiment is worth it. “Whatever we sample, people buy,” she said.

The proof of Coukos’ success is in the pudding.

Although about 90 percent of Chocolat Moderne orders are for retailers, Coukos said that the shop still has a loyal customer base—on a recent afternoon, she beamed when one of her customers walked in to buy a Valentine’s Day gift. “You are the first man in the United States to buy a Valentine’s Day gift this year!” she said.

When asked why he bought chocolates from Chocolat Moderne, he answered with a smile, “Women love them. It’s like crack.”