The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

bite chocolate Dawn Hunt delves into Milène Jardine’s transformation from a career in the fashion industry to a top chocolatier extraordinaire while admiring her line of confectioneries. Milène Jardine T here are very few things in life better than chocolate. Diamonds, sports cars, and fame, but at the end of a hard day, nothing beats biting into a luxurious, supremely made piece of chocolate to make the stresses of life seem just a bit more bearable. Per- sonally, I like my chocolate just like my coffee: su- per dark, sugar-free and from a top chocolatier. Ergo, I’m not into most mass-produced chocolate so I’m always on the hunt for the best, high-qual- ity, organic, handcrafted cocoa I can find. While pondering on this, it was by chance that I ran into the seriously gorgeous Milène Jardine. At first glance, Milène Jardine looks more like a very petite blonde, blue-eyed top model than a top chocolatier. With a background in the fashion industry, Jardine worked at Macy’s Private Label Design House for over a decade. Here she honed not only her fabulous personal style but also her business skills for 12 years through extensive in- ternational travelling and training with the com- pany, which earned her the title Product Director. In 2016, however, Macy’s went through consolida- tion, and she decided that this was the time to take a risk and follow her lifelong passion of baking and making chocolates beginning with her own brand of treats. Thus, Milène Jardine Chocolatier was born. Pulling from her childhood love of sweets, her parents encouraged her to bake by adding the necessary ingredients to their grocery lists in their hometowns of Douglaston and Bayside, New York, as they felt it was a constructive and crea- tive outlet. As she grew up, her family looked for- ward to her special desserts and confectionaries at events and celebrations. This support helped lead the way to her continuing to bake after college, but this time making it into a side project while she worked at Macy’s, creating chocolate party favours, platters, and centrepieces for art exhibi- tions, parties, and weddings. Taking no time to rest between things, Jardine launched her company in November 2016 and has