Joel Durand

Translating nature into chocolate through flavour, perfume and curiosity

Joel Durand - Chocolatier

What is it that drives you?

To discover and meet people. Every day I exchange emotions with the people who taste my creations. Pastry and the kitchen have been part of my life since I was six years old. My mother and grandmother cooked constantly, and I was always the one who would get up early to prepare breakfast — hot chocolate, and especially my chocolate cake. That was already my passion.

I first dreamed of becoming a racing driver, then a great chef. Life took a different path and I trained as a pastry chef, but chocolate was something I learned on my own. It is where I found myself. I began with a restaurant dedicated entirely to desserts, and over time my journey led me south — first to Corsica, where I fell in love with fruits and aromas, and then to Provence, where herbs, honey and flowers opened up a new world. Becoming an artisan chocolatier in Provence felt like a natural evolution.

What is it that you create?

My work is to help people discover flavours they do not always know — flowers, fruits, spices, perfumes. It is a way of discovering nature through gourmandise. Everything I explore finds its place in chocolate.

One of the most important moments for me was discovering the rose centifolia in Grasse. It flowers only in May, and it carries an extraordinary depth of perfume. I use the fresh petals in my chocolate. What interests me is the work behind it — the research and the understanding required to translate something from nature into something you can taste.

How do you approach your work?

I do not work to fixed principles. I follow my own rules. If I take a lemon, I will work with it in my own way until it becomes something that feels right to me.

I have always been like this — even at school. I do not like to follow established paths. What matters is curiosity and passion. I need to understand what I am working with, and then create something new from that understanding.

What do you love most about what you do?

Discovering and sharing. That is my motto.

For example, I recently received a powder made from dehydrated cherry fruit. It is something very simple, but in its purity there is something extraordinary. This is where the magic begins — when a flavour is true and precise.

Where does this curiosity come from?

Perhaps from my father, who was an engineer. I have always needed to understand things. When something interests me, I explore it deeply and try to push it further.

Everything I fall in love with, I develop. That has always been my way.

What sits at the heart of your work?

Sharing. Sharing knowledge, sharing discoveries, sharing emotion.

Chocolate is simply the medium — a way to bring people closer to flavours, to nature, and to each other.

Joel Durand
Maître Chocolatier
3, boulevard Victor Hugo
13210 Saint Rémy-de-Provence
jd.chocolaterie@gmail.com
www.joeldurand-chocolatier.fr