Our Story

A little Belgian chocolate.
A whole new chapter.

Meet Sylvie and Benoît

Some stories begin with a grand plan. Ours took an unexpected turn with a birthday gift, two chocolates, and a few neighbors who asked for more.

We are Sylvie Fortin and Benoît Racquet, the husband-and-wife team behind BE Chocolat. Sylvie leads our woman-owned business with a love of connecting people; Benoît brings his Belgian chocolatier’s craft and an appetite for discovery. Together, we have built a life around the surprising doors that chocolate can open.

First, Belgium. Then, the world.

The story begins in Belgium, where Benoît trained at the CERIA Culinary Institute in Brussels. He co-founded Empreinte Chocolat with Gaëlle Grollet and Haifa Cantineau, exploring how a chocolate could carry a personal message as well as a beautiful flavor.

Then came Shanghai. In 2010, Benoît served as Chocolate Chef at the Belgian Pavilion at the World Expo, sharing a little of Belgium with visitors from around the world. Eventually, our journey brought us to the United States, with that same love of good food, travel and meeting people along the way.

The birthday that started something

For Sylvie’s birthday, Benoît made chocolates: milk chocolate discs with sesame seeds, sesame oil and Himalayan pink salt, and rosemary–raspberry chocolates enrobed in dark chocolate. They were made to be enjoyed and shared. Our neighbors had another idea.

“Benoît, if you would sell it, I would buy it.”

Sometimes, a new chapter arrives in a sentence.

We brought a miniature chocolate production setup from Chocolate World in Belgium and transformed our Fairfield basement into a dedicated kitchen. Connecticut food inspectors approved the space—and were wonderfully impressed by what we had created downstairs. In 2014, we began spreading the love, one small batch at a time.

A community helped write the recipe

Those early years were about listening as much as making. We tested flavors and talked with our customers: what had they loved on their travels in Europe? What did they miss here? What were they hoping to discover?

The answers shaped our chocolates. So did the friendships. With no storefront, we opened an Uber Eats account to help our creations find their way to people. Shearwater invited us to supply chocolates, and together we developed a praline in a tiny chocolate cup, filled with the flavor of their cold brew coffee.

The business grew slowly, through neighbors, local partners and people who came back with someone they wanted us to meet. Chocolate kept opening doors. We kept being amazed by what was on the other side.

When the world stayed home

During the pandemic, travel stopped and the familiar pleasure of bringing chocolate home from Belgium suddenly felt far away. By then, we had a loyal following—and new ways to bring people together.

The Belgian Consulate in Los Angeles turned event budgets into Belgian chocolate tastings over Zoom and placed orders with us. People could be miles apart, open their chocolates together, and share a discovery. The gatherings looked different, but the connection was still there.

It also became clear that our little basement had given us all the room it could.

A home for the craft

In 2021, we opened Atelier BE Chocolat in Fairfield. Designed by Christian Arkay-Leliever, it is the kind of place we had hoped to share: a Belgian artisan’s workshop where you can see the work, breathe in the chocolate, and take your time.

Opening the doors also meant making room for more hands, more ideas and more personalities. What had begun with the two of us needed a team. We found people who shared our love of careful work and generous gestures, who could bring their own talents to the craft and the same warmth to a conversation at the counter.

There is a particular rhythm to a chocolate workshop. From November through Valentine’s Day, our team becomes a small company of elves. By Easter, the bunnies have taken over. Behind the playfulness is patient, precise work, and the thought of the person who will open each box.

The circle grew

The Atelier gave us a place to welcome camera crews and share what happens behind the chocolate. It also brought us closer to a whole world of people making good things happen around us: CTbites, suppliers and collaborators such as Fifth State Distillery, photographers, writers, local voices sharing their discoveries, and businesses whose paths might otherwise never have crossed ours.

Our customers kept widening that circle. A conversation would reveal an unexpected profession, a shared acquaintance, a project or an idea. Someone would introduce us to someone else. Often, we thought we were simply helping choose a box of chocolates. We were also beginning a relationship.

In time, bringing BE Chocolat to McArdle’s in Greenwich felt like a natural next chapter. Flowers and chocolate already knew how to make someone’s day; now they could do it together. Through local associations and chambers of commerce, we found more neighbors, more collaborators and more ways to take part in the communities that had welcomed us.

A little chocolate, a wider world

Some of those encounters have taken us well beyond the Atelier. Since 2024, we have been proud to partner with the Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater in Bridgeport, bringing chocolate strawberry cups, Belgian waffles and ice cream to concert evenings. A different setting, a much bigger soundtrack, and another chance to be part of someone’s happy memory.

Back in the workshop, curiosity still sets the pace. We explore techniques, try new flavors and let the seasons change what you find in the display. We still make our chocolates by hand, in small batches, with Belgian couverture. And we still listen. A customer’s suggestion can be the beginning of the next creation, just as it was in our basement.

Today, BE Chocolat is a team of professionals carrying that spirit forward together. Each brings something of their own, united by care for the craft and for the people it reaches. The pleasure is still in those small, precious moments: a familiar face at the counter, a child discovering how chocolate is made, a gift chosen with someone special in mind. For us, the people we meet along the way are as much a part of the story as the chocolate.

Our story began long before we had a shop window. It continues every time someone walks through the door.