Arcay Chocolates: Anabella Arcay

Arcay Chocolates is a family-owned chocolate business in Washington D.C. The founder, Annabella Arcay, started making chocolates in her home country of Venezuela in her kitchen in 2006. Over the years, Annabella became a master chocolatier and gained international notoriety after receiving 42 medals at the International Chocolate Awards! Listen to her story and the challenges she overcame along the way, in the latest episode of The Chocolate Pod. 🍫🎙️🎧

Discover more at www.TheChocolatePodcast.com

Transcript

Welcome to The Chocolate Pod, a show about founders and innovators in the craft chocolate industry and the stories behind the chocolate they create. I'm Zack Gallinger-Long, and today we're in Washington, DC, visiting RK Chocolates for the chance to speak with its founder, Anabella RK. Throughout this episode, you'll hear how Anabella's passion for chocolate has taken her from humble beginnings in her kitchen in Venezuela to becoming a celebrated chocolatier

receiving international awards from New York to London. With support from her family, Anabella has turned Arcade Chocolates into a vibrant and memorable brand. And her love of community and the strong relationship she has with her customers continues to bring more and more people through her doors. All that and more coming up on this week's episode of The Chocolate Pod.

Calling all chocolate lovers and flavor adventurers, the sweetest weekend of the year is back! Mark your calendars for March 6th, 7th, and 8th and make your way to the Ashland Hills Hotel for the 22nd annual Oregon Chocolate Festival. Indulgence awaits!

Tucked into a quiet spot on O Street in Washington D.C. sits the quaint store of Arcay chocolates. Inside, you'll find its founder, Anabella Arcay. Passionately working away to produce some of the most unique and flavorful chocolates around. In fact, her chocolates have garnered international acclaim. But more on that later.

Well, my name is Anabella Arcay. I am from Caracas, Venezuela, and I have been making chocolates for 20 years. I began in my homeland in a tiny space of the kitchen, and all what I have been making for these years, I have learned it by myself. So I am a self-taught chocolatier. So where did the story of Arcay Chocolates begin?

I'm gonna tell you about Venezuela. When I began making chocolate stair, I never thought of opening a store. Things were very difficult in my country, so I began to make everything from home. And what I made was targeted.

to weddings and festivities or events. So I began to create so many different things because the weddings and the parties were so huge and so fancy that people don't only have a cake, but they have a huge table full of desserts. And when you were starting in Venezuela, where did you get the cacao from?

From Venezuela, we have a very good cocoa that I wish I could have it here. I invented so many things with chocolate. I used to make tiny cups of chocolate filled with ganache and I put different toppings and when they have an event with a different, for example, they were gonna have a

They usually had like a theme, so I used to prepare the chocolate, you know, with the colors of the theme. I really became very popular in Venezuela for weddings, but then things turned very difficult in my country and we decided to come here. And this is a family-run business? Yes. We work together, my husband and I. He designs. He makes a lot of things for...

for the company. My daughter, she started communication at Maryland University. She helps us with a webpage. She took all the pictures of the bonbons. She made a map of flavors. And as I understand it, over the years you've acquired quite a few awards, correct? At the moment we have 42 awards.

When I was in my first years of making chocolate, I was able to attend the International Chocolate Awards. We usually came to New York for the competition. And if you win in that competition, then you had the opportunity to go to London for the final. So among the ones that I won in New York, I also have a lot from London. Can you tell us a little bit more about things that you've learned along the way in building your chocolate business?

⁓ so many things. You find so many obstacles and you fall down and you have to stand up. And that happens a lot of times and there's nothing you can do. Nobody can tell you because many people told me, you're going to the United States and you're going to those chocolates. you know, and I said, yes, because I believe my product was a good one.

I knew I was going to be able to conquer her. I'm just going to pause the story here for a second to make a quick comment on the strong sense of community and connection that Anabella has with all of her customers. Several times during our conversation throughout the interview, people came up to speak with Anabella. She always made a point to give them her full attention. Despite being a very busy entrepreneur, Anabella never seems too busy for the people in her

Hola! Hello, how are you? Welcome! I love you. Te quiero. Bye-bye. You're welcome. To my community, for me, is super, super important. Anabella, is there anything that you wish you'd known before getting started in craft chocolate? I wish at the moment I began to make chocolates. I would have found courses in chocolate.

There were no tutorials 20 years ago, no tutorials, YouTube, no Instagram. YouTube existed, but I think it was with music and that kind of thing. So for me it was really hard. I remember I didn't know how to temper very well the chocolate. Nobody told me the way to temper it. So everything was like trial and error. And sometimes I didn't have books. I didn't have...

anything to read about. There was nothing in Google. So I remember sometimes my first chocolates came like marble and ⁓ you know, I didn't want people to realize that I was not making them perfectly. So I began to cover them with gold dust over them with a brush. And I remember everybody, ⁓ they are so beautiful. And I was, you know.

laughing inside myself that I just use that to cover the mistakes of the chocolate. And then people that began to make chocolates, they began to copy. And I was laughing because if they knew that was a mistake that I made and I covered them with the gold dust, it was very funny. I'm just going to pause the story here for a quick important lesson.

Often in an entrepreneur's journey, we have to find ways to adapt to situations and make something happen. In Anabella's case, she was able to make up for her inexperience in tempering chocolate by focusing more on the presentation while she worked to improve her tempering skills. For any entrepreneurs who are listening to this episode, keep this valuable lesson in mind. There are many levers you can adjust as you learn and grow. Being mindful of your strengths as well as your weaknesses allows you to adjust which skill sets to utilize.

much like adjusting ingredients in a recipe to help you arrive at a desired outcome. The key is not losing faith that you can figure it out as you go along. When we come back in just a moment, Anabella has to figure out how to make the transition from her home in Venezuela to selling chocolates in the United States. Stay with us. I'm Zack Gallinger-Long, and you're listening to The Chocolate Pod.

For one weekend only on March 6th, 7th and 8th, join us at the Ashland Hills Hotel to taste, learn and indulge in all things chocolate and beyond. Explore the two-day marketplace with artisan chocolatiers, winemakers and flavor crafters from across the West Coast. Savor everything from dark to decadent blends, vote for your favorite makers and enjoy family-friendly fun plus special events all weekend. In honor of our 22nd year, we're celebrating the women shaping the world of chocolate.

from cocoa farms to chocolate shops and the communities that make it all possible. Join us in celebrating From Bean to Boss, The Power of Chocolate. A sweet journey from bean to bar awaits. Find all the details for your sweet escape at OregonChocolateFestival.com. This ad was partially funded through the use of Ashland Lodging tax revenues. Welcome back to The Chocolate Pod. I'm Zack Gallinger-Long. So it's 2017 and Anabella Arcay is trying to figure out

how she's going to make the jump from selling chocolates for private events in her home country of Venezuela to carving out a niche for herself in the United States. Here again is Anabella Arcay. It was hard. And I remember when I came here in 2017, I realized that I had to do something different of what I was doing in Venezuela and had to figure it out by myself. Nowadays, there are so many food in the market that

has so many chemicals and I try to prepare them as natural as they can be because I want to offer something as natural as possible that doesn't have, you know, preservatives or corn syrup and that kind of stuff. Making chocolate is a process and there are so many things that are involved. You have to clean the molds, you have to temper the

The cocoa butter you're gonna use for painting the molds. After you paint them, you have to wait until the paint is set and then you have to mold them. You have to prepare the ganache. But for example, I prepare small batches for the week. So I don't prepare big batches for a month. For example, I prepare a batch for a week, the batch is sold and then I prepare next week the batch for that week.

I try to keep my chocolates as fresh as they could be. What are some common questions that people ask you? People come and ask me where are they made? I always tell them that we made them here. And they are like, wow, really? People ask me, what is the shelf life? They feel they must have a long shelf life. But if you're no preservative, it's not gonna last that long. So you must eat it as soon as you can.

Sometimes people don't even know where the chocolate come from. They don't know they come from a fruit that is the cocoa. So sometimes when I begin to explain people, I show them a pot and I tell them how you open it, how you harvest.

how you take care of the trees, importance of having trees that give shadow to them. And sometimes the trees that surrounds the cocoa trees, the cocoa trees absorb the flavors of those trees. If you have an old tree that is given shadow, the cocoa is gonna have flavors of wood. If you have cherries, berries,

it's gonna be fruity. That flavor is gonna be present in the chocolate. When people have a chance to come by your store, what kind of chocolates can they expect to find? I try to work with chocolate that goes between 70 and 75%. All the shells of my chocolates are made of dark chocolate, except if I make a crispy rice and white chocolate or crispy rice and milk chocolate. What led you to focus more on dark chocolates?

I have discovered that makes a balance between all the flavors that I have. If I put the shell, if I use milk chocolate or white chocolate, it's not going to be balanced and I need a balance. I don't want it to be too sweet. So that's why I use the dark chocolate for the shell. What's a popular item or one of the more popular items in your store? The passion fruit. The passion fruit bonbon.

or truffle, or ganache. And that was my first award at Bon Bon. For me, it's my favorite, but I have a lot of other flavors that I love, like for example, the Cognac one, the Irish cream. When I came here, I also tried to prepare things that American people like. For example, for this season, I have pumpkin, and I also prepare the eggnog for the holidays. I prepare mint, but I have always tried to bring

flavors from my country, from tropical flavors. It's incredible to see that even after more than 42 awards in chocolate, you continue to innovate and create new things. If somebody's gonna eat a chocolate that is made by me, they get the flavor I'm selling. If you are gonna try the passion fruit, you're gonna feel a lot of passion fruit in that chocolate. There is a flavor that I haven't been able to make here that is delicious, is the mandarin.

I have tried all the mandarins here in the market and I haven't been able to make it. But it's delicious. was so delicate. If somebody is gonna try one of my chocolates, I want to see that face of, wow, this is delicious, I like it. And I have always tried to do better, to go beyond. All the ganaches that I have have been designed by me. I always design my own recipe, always.

That was Anabella Arcay of Arcay Chocolates interviewed in her store in Washington, DC. If you get the chance to visit in person, let her know you heard her on the chocolate pod. Be sure to take a moment to appreciate the beautiful paintings on all of the walls in her store, all of which were painted by Anabella herself. You can find Anabella's chocolates at rkchocolates.com. That's A-R-C-A-Y, chocolates.com. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week.

Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode. And if you're interested in joining us for an upcoming chocolate event, be sure to visit thechocolatepodcast.com to see where we're headed next. From facilitating chocolate sessions, collaborating with chocolatiers, we love connecting with chocolate fans around the world and hope to see you soon. I'm Zack Gallinger-Long, and you've been listening to The Chocolate Pod.