Catherine Delfino, owner and chocolate maker of 1.2.3 Chocolat, wraps up a set of bonbons at her chocolate kitchen in Belmont on Feb. 5. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
When someone tries a bite of chocolate mousse or other chocolate confection from Belmont company 1.2.3 Chocolat, owner Catherine Delfino is eager to note their reaction.
“I’m so happy when they say, ‘Ooh this is so good!’” she said. And if a fellow French person comes across her chocolate treats, she said, “They are like, ‘Oh my God, I’m 5 again!’ That’s exactly what we want. It’s memories of French goodies that we had when we were kids.”
For Delfino, cooking is part of her family heritage, and her goal with 1.2.3 Chocolat is to deliver an authentic French chocolate experience to Peninsula consumers.
“My mom was a very good cook. It’s a French thing, I guess,” she said. “Chocolate was always in our life.”
Chocolate maker Catherine Delfino unwraps a rum and chocolate ganache bonbon at the 1.2.3 Chocolat kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Delfino was born in England to a French mother and British father and spent her childhood in Ghana until age 11, when she moved to Paris. After growing up, marrying and having two children, she and her family decided it was time to say “au revoir” to Europe. They spent a few years in Toronto and Boston before settling in San Carlos in 2003, when her husband took a job on the Peninsula.
Though she left Paris behind, she maintained her French connections, including a seven-year career working as a visa officer and then executive assistant to the consul general of France in San Francisco. She also kept up her passion for French cuisine, particularly chocolate.
Catherine Delfino, owner and chocolate maker of 1.2.3 Chocolat, holds a tray of chocolate-covered orange peels at her chocolate kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
“All those years, on the side, it was chocolate and cooking,” she recalled. When time allowed, she took classes to further her skills and gained a reputation for being a good source of treats at work.
“At the French consulate, they remember me as always having chocolate in the office. I was super popular,” she laughed. “We had a chocolate break every day. Everybody would try some new chocolate. When somebody was a little depressed, someone would say ‘Go and see her, she’ll give you some chocolate and you’ll feel better.’”
Bits of hazel chocolate at the 1.2.3 Chocolat kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought upheaval and changes for all, and Delfino decided to make a big change as well – leaving her longtime job and devoting herself to her passion for chocolate. With advice and encouragement from pastry chef Yannick Dumonceau, who had also moved from France to California, 1.2.3 Chocolat, named after a French childhood game at the suggestion of a friend, was launched on March 12, 2023 (fortuitously, when written in the European style, the official start date is 12/3, Delfino noted.)
The very next month, she entered the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon and, to her surprise, was awarded several medals – encouragement that she was on the right track.
Catherine Delfino, owner and chocolate maker of 1.2.3 Chocolat, wraps up a set of bonbons at her chocolate kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Delfino’s original plan was to focus solely on chocolate mousse, offering a membership program with participants receiving a different mousse variation each month. Her goal was to serve the mousse in porcelain ramekins that members would wash, return and refill, avoiding sending any waste to the landfill. But she found that people were not sold on that model, so she pivoted to paper cups to avoid plastic and started offering smaller portion sizes.
“I had a vision and my vision is changing, but I don’t give up,” she said. “I’m adapting with the feedback of people.”
Delfino’s Chocolate mousse, which is made with raw eggs, is also quite perishable and needs refrigeration, so she branched out to making shelf-stable chocolate products.
The company currently offers chocolate mousse (using Delfino’s grandmother’s recipe) in several sizes, along with chocolate-covered hazelnuts and almonds, orangettes and other chocolate bars and bonbons, sometimes themed for upcoming holidays.
A bag of chocolate amandes at the 1.2.3 Chocolat kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
She makes her products out of a commercial kitchen in Belmont and sells them directly via her website; caters dessert for special events such as weddings, bar mitzvahs and birthdays; and participates in pop-up markets often. She also has “chocolate corners” featuring some of her products at local retailers Little Green in Redwood City and Sweet Tea Flowers in San Carlos, with more coming soon.
Upcoming events include participating in the French Gastronomy Festival in San Francisco April 5; the SF International Chocolate Salon April 6 (where she will be featuring her signature chocolate mousse and traditional French Easter chocolates and unveiling her newest chocolate collection); and the Belmont Wedding Fair April 13. Delfino is also planning special Mother’s Day events, including the launch of a new chocolate flavor, she said.
What is the key to good chocolate products? “You cannot use the same chocolate for all the recipes. There’s bitterness; you have to take that into consideration,” she said, noting for example that she’s recently been making dark chocolate with passion fruit filling, which can be quite tart and zesty.
“To make it less of the ‘zing!’ effect, I add some milk chocolate,” she said. “It makes it just perfect when it breaks.”
Chocolate-covered orange peels, which are Catherine Delfino’s absolute favorite, dry on a tray at the 1.2.3 Chocolat kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Her top chocolate brand of choice is Valrhona from, of course, France. She only uses organic products, and it isn’t always easy to procure them.
“In the chocolate mousse there are two ingredients: chocolate and eggs. Try to find an egg now after 10 a.m. in the Bay Area,” she said. “You can see me waiting at 8 a.m. at Bianchini’s. I’m very picky with what I use.”
As a one-person operation, starting and maintaining a business comes with plenty of challenges. Along with the actual chocolate-making and networking, which Delfino loves, there’s a lot of bureaucracy, accounting and marketing, which she doesn’t.
“I prefer to have some chocolate on my fingers than do those things,” she said.
Chocolate maker Catherine Delfino holds up a chocolate bar at the 1.2.3 Chocolat kitchen in Belmont. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
She does enjoy experimenting with variations and creating custom orders (she fondly recalled fulfilling a recent bat mitzvah request for mousse with bubblegum sprinkles), but her practice remains rooted in time-tested classic French recipes.
“I’m not going to try whatever flavor because it’s trendy. I’m more ‘tradition’ and ‘French’ and ‘do what works,’” she said. After all, “I’m not in it for the money,” she said. “I’m in it for the love of chocolate.”
More information is available at 123chocolat.com. Instagram: @123chocolatfr.
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