In Wine Country, chocolate like you’ve never seen.
Chris Kollar creates his very own Wonka world in Yountville
“Oh, I love this place,” sighs a little girl as her parents try to lead her out of Kollar Chocolates in Yountville.
Colorful chocolate owls stare back at her from their perches on the wall. Nearby, rows of jewellike truffles beckon in a glass case. When this chocolate store opened in 2011, it attracted tourists en route to the town’s famous restaurants — the French Laundry, Bistro Jeanty, Redd and Ad Hoc all reside within walking distance. Very quickly, though, Kollar has become a culinary destination in its own right.
Tucked inside the V Marketplace, which houses several other high-end shops, Kollar Chocolates first entices visitors with the scent of melting chocolate wafting from a glass-enclosed display kitchen. According to owner and chief chocolatier Chris Kollar, he wanted to “make it an open kitchen like you’d see in a restaurant.” That way, visitors can interact with the chocolatiers and ask them questions.
It’s fitting that a black-and-white portrait of Willy Wonka hangs on the wall. From this small kitchen emerge not only Kollar’s famous truffles but all the decorations that adorn his shop. Yet this is Napa County, not Wonka’s factory world, so the whimsy often skews upscale. For instance, trays of chocolate “sushi” cradle blood orange pâte de fruit and cubes of 72 percent dark chocolate wrapped in crispy rice ($29). Kollar calls them California Kollar Chocolate Rolls.
“I don’t want to do something old fashioned that’s been done,” Kollar says. “I want to do what’s present and moving forward into the future.”
An “anti-dental kit” ($20) includes a dark chocolate toothbrush and tube of “toothpaste” that squeezes out chocolate ganache. Glittery “lipsticks” ($5 apiece) next to the register are an effective impulse buy — Venezuelan dark chocolate brushed in colored cocoa butter in a lipstick tube. It’s meant to be eaten, but you can also first rub it across your kisser for a faint shimmer.
Employees offer free samples in the store, such as pieces of chocolate truffles infused with Espelette chile that gently burns long after you’ve swallowed. Kollar uses a cold infusion process to produce these intense flavors. For example, to make his Earl Grey tea truffle, he’ll steep tea into cold cream for as long as three days.
Much of Kollar’s inspiration comes from bike rides around the area. The overgrowth of fennel pollen bordering the highway inspired a fennel pollen truffle, one of his signature creations. Its glistening gold-green exterior mimics the color of the pollen itself. “We’re not just splattering on colors and calling it a day,” Kollar says.
His color library encompasses hundreds of colors, including his own blends. A luminous yellow orange shell frames an orange Grand Marnier truffle, while an armor of deep garnet conceals another infused with Zinfandel.
“I’ve been told I’m an artist,” he says. “So I own it now.”
As such, he’s created some spectacular edible artwork. When Jean-Charles Boisset, owner of Raymond Vineyards, needed dessert for a lavish party, he called on Kollar with a peculiar request: two women to be brushed in chocolate so that guests could lick it off of them. Kollar’s response: “I think we’re going to have problems with that. We’re in Napa Valley. We’re not in Amsterdam.”
(In the end, chocolate-rubbed women posed next to each other with chocolates around them for guests to take. The following year, Kollar complied with Boisset’s request to create a chocolate bath tub. A model reclined inside.)
Even though Kollar reluctantly accepts the title of artist, he remains a chef and chocolatemaker. Largely self-taught and formerly a savory restaurant cook, he spent weekends learning to make chocolate under veteran pastry chefs like Kriss Harvey of the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. “He taught me how to airbrush,” says Kollar, who relies on a compressor filled with colored cocoa butter, similar to what a tattoo artist would use.
He also gives a lot of credit to his Yountville address (“It’s a food mecca”) and his employees, former and current culinary students whom he personally trained in chocolate.
Working with chocolate affected Kollar’s personal life, too. “I wasn’t a very patient person,” he says. As a cook, he was used to churning out dishes as quickly as possible. With chocolate “you have to have an extreme amount of patience,” explains Kollar. “It helped me slow down.”
As the shop enters its sixth year of business, Kollar is humbled by his success. “On paper, this company should’ve failed,” he says. “I’m 100 percent owner-operator. I’m not run by any investors.”