Meet the maker
Ara
About Ara
Based in Paris, Ara Chocolat was founded in 2015 by Sabrina and Andrés. Based in Paris but originally from Venezuela, Andres and Sabrina’s environmentally conscious ethos guides everything they do. Both are vegan, as is all their chocolate and they strive to use all organic ingredients whenever possible. The simplicity and quality of their ingredients, they feel, is key to expressing the flavour of the bean in each bar. The pair run their bean-to-bar atelier together, assisted by one part-time team member. Andrés is the one behind every recipe, every roast, and every conversation about cacao in their shop.
“Ara” is the name of the colourful parrots native to Latin America — a nod to the biodiversity of cacao-growing regions and to our Latin American roots. In the pair’s native city of Caracas, the Ara Macaws fly freely over the rooftops and across the hills — a magical, everyday spectacle that stays with you no matter how far you go. For them, it’s a powerful symbol of home, joy, and connection to nature.
Their mission? To craft meaningful chocolate that reflects the full story of cacao — from its genetics and cultural roots to its expression as a fine food. Sabrina and Andrés only make bean-to-bar, using directly traded cacao from Latin America and 100% natural, plant-based ingredients. All of their chocolate is made in-house in their Paris atelier, powered by renewable energy.
The pair care deeply about transparency, dignity, and sustainability — both in sourcing and in making. Every bar is a tribute to the producers who grow cacao with care and to the craft that turns it into something extraordinary.
How they became makers…
Andrés was born in Caracas, Venezuela and fell in love with cooking as a child — baking cakes at 8 years old and dreaming of working in a Michelin-starred kitchen. After professional culinary training in Caracas, he moved to London and fulfilled that dream, working in several Michelin-starred restaurants. But a life-changing trip to Paria, on Venezuela’s cacao-rich coast, shifted everything. Surrounded by wild cacao trees and Caribbean beaches, Andrés fell in love with cacao — its history, biodiversity, and untapped potential — and decided to dedicate his life to making chocolate. He returned to Venezuela to learn bean-to-bar chocolate from the ground up and later honed his craft in France, working in two French chocolate factories before starting his own. In 2015, Ara Chocolat was born.
Sabrina also grew up in Venezuela. With a background in language teaching and communication, she was always a chocolate lover. Meeting Andrés drew her deeper into the world of fine cacao, and she became a certified chocolate taster through the International Institute of Chocolate & Cacao Tasting. She now handles communications, client relationships, and leads our tastings — her favorite part of the job.
Ara’s Sourcing
Andrés is also Ara’s cacao sourcer — which means he’s the one who personally seeks out the heirloom cacaos that the pair transform into chocolate. His sourcing work is as passionate and meticulous as his chocolate making, rooted in curiosity, respect, and deep admiration for the diversity of cacao.
He discovers the cacaos Ara works with in two main ways. He travels to the origin, visiting cocoa-producing countries to meet farmers and cooperatives in person, and tasting the cacao at every stage — from the fresh pulp to the fermented and dried beans. Or, he spends hours diving into academic papers, university studies, and genetic databases from germplasm banks and cacao researchers; if a variety stands out, he investigates where it’s grown, and then reaches out to see how they can source it ethically and directly.
We were fortunate enough to chat to Sabrina and discover a bit more about Ara.
- What’s your background? Why and how did you get into chocolate?
We are both Venezuelan, so we fell in love with chocolate since we were little… Lucky I married a chocolatier when I grew up!
My husband, Andres is the chef chocolatier. He studied to be a pastry chef in Venezuela, then worked as Pastry Chef at a Marriot Hotel in Venezuela. After that he moved to London, where he lived for around five years and worked for several Michelin Restaurants, such as The Green House and La Noisette.
He has loved chocolate since he was little, but it was when he took a trip to the east coast of Venezuela, that he discovered the magical world of cocoa trees and started seeing the different varieties. He decided he wanted to retrain as a chocolatier.
He went back to London worked at Sir Hans Sloan Chocolates while he decided what he was going to do next and learnt more things about the chocolate making process.
Some months later he went back to Venezuela, where he worked for three years with Chocolates Franceschi, as Chef Chocolatier. He worked very closely with the Franceschi family before finally coming to France where we are trying to make people fall in love with bean to bar.
- What mission have you set for making chocolate?
Our mission is to help people understand what bean to bar is all about. We want to help them find out the differences that exist from one origin to the other, so they buy bean to bar chocolates from small makers instead of mass market chocolate.
For the long term we would like to own a little organic plantation, where we can rescue and grow unknown beans varieties, such as Pentagona beans or other Criollo beans from Venezuela. So we can use our own beans to make our bars.
- When did you start Ara — and with whom? How many are there of you?
Ara Chocolat is a family project that we started a couple of months ago. We had been thinking about it for a while, since there are not many bean to bar chocolatiers in France and we finally decided to get on board this summer. There is only my husband and I and, of course, the love and passion we share for cocoa beans and chocolate.
- Where do you want take your business next? New bars? New beans? New markets?
I think we will always be seeking for new beans! Besides, my husband never stops thinking and tasting new recipes. So we might have new ones coming out…
- Tell us a little about your how you make the bars?
We have a small oven to roast the beans, then we pass them through two different winnowers (one of which was made by my husband), then we put them into a small grinder and then into a small melangeur.
We leave our chocolate conching between 12 to 48 hours and then we mould the bars.
- Tell us a little about how you source your beans?
As we are a small chocolate maker and we buy small amounts of beans, most of the time we have to buy through cocoa traders. But we are looking for local growers that can sell to us directly. We will be going to Venezuela in December for that.
- What is your favourite food? Wine? Other chocolate makers?
My husband and I are vegan. When we eat out, we love Indian and Thai food, at home my husband cooks delicious vegan meals. We love spicy food, all kinds of fruits, olives, we are crazy about Spanish olives. Being vegan, all our recipes are dairy free, which is even better when eating chocolate, because people get to really taste and enjoy the flavour of each bean variety. Even our pralines and spreads are made with 70% chocolate to enhance the different aromas of our cocoa beans.
One of the things we love the most about France, is its incredible wine variety. Every time we buy a bottle, we try to get a new variety, and if we really love it, we write it down in a little wine notebook we have. This summer we tried a white wine named “Le Caprice de Clémentine” from “Côtes de Provence”, in the South of France and we really loved it.
Other chocolate makers? Of course, we really admire the work that the Franceschi family has done in Venezuela to recover Criollo varieties that were almost extinct and their Canoabo bar is one of Andres’ favourites. We also admire the work of Mott Green, with the Grenada Chocolate Company and the way he promoted the quality of Grenada’s beans, by setting up his chocolate factory over there.
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