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Starting this winter, lovers of sweet canapés, pastries and petit fours made with the finest chocolate will have a chance to indulge their taste buds with treats created by Dominic Fortin using his own signature chocolate. Fortin, the Bearfoot Bistro’s executive pastry chef, was recently invited to attend France’s prestigious Cacao Barry’s Or Noir laboratory with the aim of creating his own blend of dark and milk chocolate for use in the Bearfoot’s delectable pastries and other desserts. Fortin is just the third Canadian to have attended the Or Noir program — evidence of what The Globe and Mail recently called the Bistro’s “innovative” approach to fine dining. “André [Saint-Jacques, the restaurant’s founder] likes to be ahead of the game … to do new things,” says Fortin. “The vodka ice room was one of the first things like that, and the pastry program I’m running, I don’t know any other pastry program like it in B.C.” Fortin’s dark chocolate, with 71.2 per cent cacao, is a blend of beans from three different regions of the world. His milk chocolate is an unusually “dark” blend, at 52 per cent cacao. “I like to remove some of the sugar from my creations to make them less sweet, but there’s lots of milk flavour and lots of honey.” Beginning in mid-December, all of the desserts and petit fours that include chocolate will be crafted using Fortin’s signature blends. Customers also will be able to purchase a made-in-house bar of decadence to take home!