SWEET DREAM
Chocolatier Brandon Olsen has opened his own store on College St.,
Chefs often start their empires with a high-end restaurant and spin out the brand from there.
Brandon Olsen, generally not a fan of doing things the proper way, is starting instead with something of a side project.
His Chocolates X Brandon Olsen (CXBO) takes up a small storefront in a former flower shop on a stretch of College St. near Dufferin St. “I like it quiet,” he says of the location.
The plan: Make CXBO a destination. Open a restaurant next. More stuff to follow.
Doing things his own way is not new for Olsen. He went to George Brown College for one year, merely to please his parents.
“I pretty much almost failed,” he says.
Not that he didn’t know food. In fact, he worked in kitchens the whole time. He’d get up early to do prep, go to school all day and work service at night.
After this exhausting stretch of life, he took an unpaid internship at the French Laundry, an upscale restaurant in Napa Valley with three Michelin stars. For two months, Olsen peeled potatoes and asked questions.
In particular, he kept his eye on the pastry chef and his bonbons and petit fours. “I have a love for sweets,” admits Olsen. He stuck around Napa for two years, cooking at Ad Hoc, which is owned by French Laundry proprietor Thomas Keller.
He then came back to Toronto and got to work in restaurants again, while messing around with chocolates at home and plotting his entrepreneurial outings.
In 2009, he and his cousin launched a chocolate company called Neslo (Olsen spelled backward). Within a few months, the venture sank, taking Olsen’s savings with it.
He quickly got another restaurant job, this time at the Black Hoof. The well-known restaurant helped him get known around town. He rose to head chef and then moved to Bar Isabel in the same position.
“In Toronto, a lot of your success has to do with your reputation,” says Olsen. Now with some clout — and a bit more business sense — he started planning CXBO.
This outing would be in collaboration with his girlfriend: artist and filmmaker Sarah Keenlyside. She’s brought a strong design sense and solid business ideas to the project.
“She knows how to take what I’m thinking and saying and put it into action,” says Olsen.
Last fall, Olsen started putting together his collection of nine bonbons. He uses high-end chocolate, which he melts down and tempers. He fills his chocolates with a cream-based ganache flavoured with unique combinations: orange blossom and honey; yuzu and sake; raspberry rose fennel; and lime, ginger and black pepper.
Most uniquely, he decorates his moulded creations in an abstract art style. They look like nothing you’ve ever seen.
Last fall, Olsen posted a picture of his work on Instagram and people went nuts. The company was inundated with orders. They sold about 20,000 pieces over Christmas alone.
He quit Bar Isabel in January and got to work making more chocolates and getting the retail location ready.
Since they started the entire business on $1,000, a line of credit and no business plan, the pair did most of the renovations themselves. Every time they brought in some money — out of the store, via retailers such as the Drake General Store or at popups — they put it back into the business.
Now, the doors are open and Olsen is making chocolates as fast as he can.
And he’s already plotting his next moves and imagining CXBO in the hands of a chocolatier.
“Eventually, I will get back into cooking. Within a year, I want to be in my own restaurant,” he says.
“Eventually, I will get back into cooking. Within a year, I want to be in my own restaurant.” BRANDON OLSEN CHOCOLATIER