Each is our own shop, a subsidiary, because we want to control the quality, the presentation, the culture. By the end of the year we will have about 38 boutiques, located in Paris, Cannes, London, New York, Tokyo, Osaka and Hong Kong. When I started we had around 40 people working for the company, and now we are more than 500. I think I was very lucky because I met somebody who was exceptional: he is a creator, and has a real passion, and that’s the idea behind Maison du Chocolat. When I arrived, there were just three or four shops Robert had an amazing talent, and they were looking for somebody who could manage the company and expand it.
‘I have worked at Maison du Chocolat for 18 years now. Then I met Robert Linxe, and joined Maison du Chocolat, and now it’s my passion – I am sure I will finish my days in chocolate!
I learned all about chocolate during the five years I was there. It had a network of franchising, and I was familiar with that from my job, so I accepted the position. It was bought by the owner of De Neuville, a producer of mid-range chocolates in France, and when we met he asked me if I wanted to be president of that company. I was in the real estate business, and we happened to be selling a large house. My parents loved to eat well, and that included chocolate.īut I came to the chocolate business by chance, it was not a case of my saying when I finished my studies, “Now I have to go into chocolate”, no. ‘I was born in Savoie, not far from Lyon, between there and Geneva, and I’m from a big family – I am one of six brothers and sisters, and my mother was one of twelve, so it was very important to share. Why? Because as a child I loved chocolate, and today still, after 40 or 50 years, I have hot chocolate for breakfast each morning. d’Anglejan-Chatillon explains in a rich accent that would have any red-blooded Anglo-Saxon woman melting like fine chocolate and reaching for a glass of Cointreau: ‘I have been working in the chocolate industry for 23 or 24 years, and that’s a long, long time. He has a lifetime of chocolate appreciation, and has made that a delicious career for almost a couple of decades. It’s a very French company and has an equally Gallic director general in the guise of the suave and genuinely charming Geoffroy d’Anglejan-Chatillon.
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