The apologies are sweeter at Padovani’s Chocolates

Philippe Padovani has been busily preparing for Valentine’s Day, as any chocolatier worth his or her salt would be doing given today’s date.

However, his shop — Padovani’s Chocolates — is a popular stop year-round. Some customers come by daily for coffee or other beverage and a pastry or individual quiche, while others stop for indulgent chocolates and still others, for imported gourmet products.

During a recent visit to his second-floor coffee, chocolate, baked goods and edible luxuries haven at the Shops at Dole Cannery, two gentlemen separately made purchases to, as one of them put it, resolve “a major miscommunication with my wife.”

Padovani offers various options for such amends-making including a cool box that unfurls revealing four tiers ready for filling.

Pointing to the tiers as he spoke, he said, “chocolate, chocolate, Victoria’s Secret” and jewelry, he laughed. Boxes with fewer tiers also are available.

Chocolates in the shape of lips have exotic flavors including Tahitian vanilla caramel, red yuzu citrus caramel and a sea-breeze caramel dark chocolate so called because sea salt is a component in the flavor. One flavor of the lip-shaped chocolates contains lilikoi, as do other of his chocolate confections. It is an exclusive hybrid of lilikoi bred specifically for Padovani.

A racier option than lip-shaped sweet bites would be his boxed Kama Sutra chocolates that are not displayed for all to see, just in case children come in, explained his daughter, Celine Padovani-Baltazar. The solid chocolates are definitely for adult viewing, given the images depicted thereupon.

A woman called the shop, asking for what Padovani thought was his “nori” chocolate, but after explaining to her that he doesn’t make seaweed chocolates, she clarified that she was inquiring about the “naughty” chocolates, he said, chuckling.

Padovani’s handcrafted chocolates range in price from a few dollars to hundreds, depending on the amount and varieties purchased. He has shipped chocolates to international dignitaries, some of whom have a preference for those with alcohol-laced fillings, he said.

With lead time of about a week, he can put together custom orders of chocolates, desserts for private parties, or a “chocolate show” as a private function that would fill from two to three hours, he said.

One of his unique imported products is a drink, a dessert and a serving dish all in one. What he calls “baby coconuts” from Thailand feature pop-tops, like atop soda cans. A generous amount of coconut water inside is mildly sweet and coconutty, as one would expect, and the coconut flesh is soft and mild.

Padovani sees several applications of the cute coconuts for restaurant service and home use, mentioning curries, desserts, cocktails and other possibilities. He is the distributor for the coconuts but also sells them individually for $8.

Some of his regular customers expressed alarm to him that Shops at Dole Cannery owner Castle & Cooke had opened a coffee shop and planned to open a chocolate shop in the ground-floor food court.

The company-owned coffee and chocolate operations are close to Iwilei Road “right across from the theaters,” said Chris Lovvorn, vice president for commercial development at Castle & Cooke Hawaii.

The Shops at Dole Cannery also presents an opportunity to have retail space in town for its Waialua-grown coffee and chocolate, and it plans similar showcases at Dole Plantation in Central Oahu.

“We’re taking the coffee from crop to cup and taking the cacao from bean to bar,” he said.

The cacao beans that Castle & Cooke’s Waialua Chocolate has been growing and fermenting in Waialua will be transported to the Shops at Dole Cannery where they will be roasted and converted into chocolate on-site.

Primarily a wholesaler producing 1-pound bars of chocolate for restaurants such as Alan Wong’s and other industry players, Waialua Chocolate Factory at Dole also will make 2-ounce bars for retail, Lovvorn said.

“Padovani purchases chocolate … does his magic and his artwork” and creates chocolate confections. “We are not set up to, or planning to, compete with him.”

Trolley-loads of Japanese visitors already visit the former cannery site where tofu, jewelry and Padovani’s chocolates currently are manufactured, and Castle & Cooke plans tours of its bean-to-bar chocolate factory on the other side of the complex, Lovvorn said.

Taking a long view of Iwilei and the Shops at Dole Cannery, the leadership of Castle & Cooke believes that “if we can create a destination, that’s a step in the right direction for redevelopment” of the area, Lovvorn said. “Visionary folks here like Harry Saunders are trying to take those steps forward.”

Special note

Dear reader, this will be the final “TheBuzz” or “Buy Local” column you will see under my byline. Hired by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin to write TheBuzz in March 2001, and given the opportunity to highlight small local businesses in “Buy Local” since May 2013, it has been a humbling honor and rewarding privilege to write each inch of news copy you have kindly read. While you still will see my byline in the business pages from time to time, I’ll be taking on an exciting new role here at the paper. Stay tuned for details!

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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.