Wine and chocolate? Yes please. During the upcoming West Seattle Wine Walk (September 28, 5p-9p - tickets available here), Mercer Estates winery will be joining (our favorite!) locally made Dolcetta Artisan Sweets for a wine-and-chocolate-tasting-extravaganza.
We caught up with Andrea, the founder of Dolcetta and asked her a few questions about her delectable sweet treats:
How would you describe what you make?
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
I guess the best piece of advice was 'charge what you need to charge'. Coming from a restaurant career I was used to only considering ingredient costs, it took time to realize how much time and materials go into a packaged product. Otherwise, most of what I've learned about business has come from faithfully watching Shark Tank and The Profit. Now I'm more focused on increasing margins and streamlining production.
Can you describe your favorite part of the work you do?
I love having something to show for my efforts, especially something that makes people so happy. I've always enjoyed the magical transformations of baking and pastry. Chocolate work is not as dramatic a transformation, but still satisfying when bars and bonbons come out of the molds super shiny. And I have fun decorating the bonbons and holiday specials with multiple colors of cacao butter. Plus I do get to eat all the scraps and am head of quality control, so eating chocolate every day is pretty great, too.
Can you explain how Dolcetta came to be?
I started Dolcetta in 2014 after 15 years as a restaurant pastry chef (and a few years in bakeries and cafes before that). I enjoyed a lot of my restaurant career but was starting to feel I'd 'been there & done that'. A co-worker's cancer diagnosis reminded me that life is short, so I took the leap into business and have learned a lot. When I worked overseas in 2007-2009, it always impressed me that people would share their food, no matter how low their income. I believe that no one should have to go hungry in a nation as wealthy as the US, so I've always donated a portion of sales to Food Lifeline, and registered as a Social Purpose Corporation last summer. I might not change the world but at least I can use my powers for good as best I can.Do you have any personal favorite flavor(s)/item(s)?
My favorite item is the peanut butter crisp truffles. Seriously, I have a problem! But I'll control myself and save some samples for the event. My favorite bars are the coconut and the candied orange.