Breaking the Barriers to set up a chocolate Bar amidst hundreds of coffee shops, the four founders of casa Xocolat talk to AndreA PAsion aBout creating the ultimate eXperience for chocoholics
To err is human, to chocolate is divine.” Scrawled on a chalkboard at the entrance of Casa Xocolat, the words are a prelude to the sweet debauchery that lies ahead in the house-turned-commissary-slash-café on university row at the Katipunan area in Quezon City. Like those before me, I leave my diet at the door to seek divinity in this cozy place. With its mismatched furniture and handpainted chairs, this café is perfect for the area’s student crowd.
CoCoA Bliss
“Everyone loves chocolate,” Valerie Lopez says confidently. She is one of the four owners of Café Xocolat. “You have yet to show me someone who hates chocolate. A person may not love-love chocolate but, for sure, that person likes chocolate.”
Add the Filipino tradition of drinking tsokolate, and the result is a viable alternative to the ubiquitous foreign coffee shops all over the city – and these young entrepreneurs know it.
College friends Valerie Lopez, Pinky Ortiz, Rina Avecilla and Trish Malvar are all in their mid-30s, married, and share a deep passion for all things cocoa. The chocolate drinks they serve are rich, thick, sweet and utterly decadent.
Stick one of their fat churros into their Taza de Xocolat, and it stands on its own. If this drink doesn’t arrive at your table as fast as you’re used to, it’s because the chocolate is beaten and whipped to bespoke perfection – a rich, dark brew that promises no less than absolute chocolate bliss.
Bringing it Home
Valerie and Pinky already have The Bead Shop, a successfully established business, but in 2004, while on a trip to Barcelona, they hit upon the idea of setting up a chocolate bar. They had frequented many chocolate shops, one of which was Christian Escriba, a traditional chocolate shop with marble tables and Gaudi-inspired mosaic interiors. According to Valerie, the chocolate there was so thick that it was more like a soup, but they had it almost every day.
So what happens when you have consumed so much chocolate?
“Your head is spinning and you’re talking nonsense. And part of that nonsense was thinking, 'It would be nice to bring this home to Manila, set up a shop like this and tweak it a little (for our market)’,” says Valerie.
But they needed more partners to put up the café they had in mind. So they brought in Rina and Trish. Having fathers who worked for multi-national companies, Rina and Trish have traveled extensively and would add an international spin to the concept.
But most of all, they loved chocolate as much as Valerie and Pinky. Without hesitation, they each plunked PHP500,000 into an unfamiliar concept, believing only that Filipinos love chocolate. In June 2005, they set up their first shop at the Promenade in Greenhills. They used the X to replace the “ch” in chocolate as is done in Catalan, the language in Barcelona.
“We were lucky to have found a developer who believed in the idea,” says Valerie. Being unknown in the industry, without a background in food and beverage, they were relying solely on their own tastes to develop their menu.
They knew they could not compromise on ingredients, so Café Xocolat’s chocolate is sourced from all over the world. They came up with products they would have bought themselves, and decided that they had to educate a largely coffee-drinking market.
Knowing that the Philippine market is extremely cost-sensitive, they were careful to price themselves affordably without compromising quality. “Our prices easily match our competitors’, but our products are far superior,” Pinky adds.
Spreading Chocolate Cheer
At first, they were getting older people as customers. It is the older people, after all, who have been raised to drink chocolate and would find nothing unusual about a café dedicated solely to chocolate. But it was not much longer before the Promenade shop gained a reputation and was soon a hit with young and old alike.
They found many local fans. Food writer Lori Baltazar claims Café Xocolat serves the best hot chocolate, while Rosa Abad Santos and her nine-year-old daughter, Sam, go to Xocolat’s Megamall branch to have Dalandan Honey Tropic with chocolate shavings and an eggplant panini or a Xocolat Lava.
“Before my daughter’s skating lessons at Megamall, we’d troop to Xocolat for merienda and to do her homework. It’s perfect – it’s quiet and has an array of yummy merienda treats. We bond over their Fondue For Two!”
The women all agree that their customers are not typical. Those who walk into their cafés are looking for alternatives to the usual coffee concoctions and generic coffee houses.
In contrast, each Xocolat café is designed differently and their hot chocolate drinks are served in beautiful stone pottery instead of impersonal paper cups. This attention to detail is deliberate, knowing that by offering the market a choice, they must fulfill higher expectations.
After the first shop, the girls saw the need to expand, so they increased their capital outlay, each putting in another PHP500,000. In August 2005, only two months after opening their Promenade shop, they opened their next outlet in SM Megamall.
A month later, they opened in Eastwood and in August 2006, needing a commissary, they got the house in Katipunan to put up Casa Xocolat. Their branch in Serendra at The Fort is set to open in February 2007.
However, they know, without having the exact numbers, that their almost-five cafés have hardly dented the coffee-drinking market – even if Xocolat does offer coffee with chocolate, like their Café Latte, a latte with dark chocolate tablets that melt to thickly coat a spoon, and Café Blanco, espresso and steamed milk with white chocolate tablets.
But even so, competitors have already been reacting to their presence, with one big chain coming out with their own hot chocolate drinks, and another chain having barristas asking customers, “Would you like some chocolate in your coffee?”
Chocolate dreams
Aside from the chocolate drinks, Xocolat offers sandwiches and pasta, and their churros are noteworthy, especially when enjoyed with savory dips like chori quezo (chorizo and cheese) and goat cheese with olive oil.
Their Croquettas – potato croquettes in salsa heaped with a mountain of goat cheese – are scrumptious. Fondue for Two, with a selection of fruit, cake and sweets for dipping, is not to be braved alone, while their chocolate chip cookies are thick, chewy and large as saucers, and their cold drinks are milkshake-like in consistency.
If you’re feeling really immoral, go for their Frozen Hot Chocolate – hot, dark chocolate drink frozen into sorbet balls served in a martini glass. Each ball gives a chocolate fix that can last a long time: the Xocolat experience is deliciously wicked.
So how far are these four women willing to take their chocolate dreams?
“We want to bring the homegrown concept abroad,” says Rina. “It would be a highlight if we could set up an outlet in a place that we like. We also want the international market to get a taste of Philippine concoctions and traditions.”
In the meantime, they’ve already developed easy-to-prepare powdered chocolate drinks in different flavors (Wicked, Old Fashion, Organic) for people to make at home or give to loved ones abroad – a portable Xocolat experience that is destined to satisfy the world
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