Vincent, The Inventor:
Even when I was child, I always preferred the taste of coffee to chocolate. And because I couldn't stand hot drinks, I couldn't enjoy a cup of coffee. The only thing left to me was occasional coffee-flavoured pastries or ice-creams. But every day at five, watching my friends just out of school, biting in a chocolate-bar, I dreamed of biting into a bar too... but a coffee-bar!
All my life, I wished I could eat coffee. I tried to see if one of my pastry chef or chocolate maker friends might help me. But I needed someone who was not only a great “chocolatier” but also an adventurer of new tastes, ready to jump into new projects. François Pralus has all of these qualities... and he is my friend. I'm so glad he has finally made my child’s dream come true.
François, The Designer:
François Pralus at the head of one of the finest french chocolate factories, is always ready to take up an idea if it catches his imagination. He threw himself into this project without hesitating. After exciting discussions (with a coffee cup in our hands, naturally), we laid the groundwork and arranged to immediately start testing ideas and exploring the alchemy of "edible coffee".
A few weeks of experiments, sleepless nights and secret tastings later, the first black-coffee cover was finally pouring out of the Pralus workshop's mixers under the thrilled gaze of its two genitors. Edible coffee bar was born. Now they just had to find a name for it:
CARRÉ DE CAFÉ® (« coffee square » in french) This name refers to the French name of « carré de chocolat » (chocolate square) the nickname of a chocolate chunk, according to the shape of chocolate bars.
Vincent Ferniot
After more than 15 years on the daily Télématin (France 2) and Midi en France (France 3), where he visited wholesale and retail markets, he now presents “Manger C’est Voter” (Public Sénat TV) and Ferniot Fait le Marché (Sud Radio), in which he shares his passion for the best products, local specialities and chefs recipes with television viewers. Everyone appreciates his knowledge of cooking and the simple, cheerful way in which he shares and transmits it. Vincent hosts the greatest chefs and pastry chefs, the best producers, sellers and artisans, alongside guests from all cultural horizons. He has become their true friend and earned a special place in the hearts of foodies and the gastronomy community.
François Pralus
François Pralus is a “Master-Chocolate-Maker”, one of the few in France to produce his own chocolate. This chocolate adventurer has been travelling the world for nearly 30 years now in search of the finest chocolate beans. This passion led him to set up his own cocoa plantation in Madagascar.
In his Roanne-based manufacture, François Pralus produces about 20 single-origin chocolates, a range of flavours revealed by the type of beans and the terroir in which they were grown. Among his flagship products, the “Pyramide des Tropiques”, created in 2003, has gained a global following, like his generous, flavoursome “Barre-Infernales”.
Recognised throughout the gastronomy community, the quality of his chocolates has won many awards around the world. Most recently, he was awarded “Incontournable de la Tablette” by the renowned “Club des Croqueurs de Chocolat”.
Nathalie Guirma
Nathalie Guirma is a journalist, TV and Radio host (on French and Belgian media), graduate of the famous “Sciences-Po” school in Paris, she his known as a specialist of the Made-in-France Crafts and Industry.
As coffee runs through her veins, she was therefore predestined too join the Carré de Café team. Her father was born in French Flanders where a coffee-pot always stands on the stove, and working as a diplomat in Africa he met and married Nathalie’s Rwandan mother. Rwanda is located in East Africa nearby Ethiopia, the true cradle of Humanity… and coffee. Living in Brussels (the capital of Belgium, “the other country of chocolate”) Nathalie defines herself as “the little coffee bean in the big chocolate machine”. Being a coffee enthusiast she will naturally be at the head of Sales and Communication.
