“The shell will crack like a little volcano because the ganache wants to get out into the world.”

This is how Philippe Padovani talks about properly made chocolate, his passion and his purpose.

For 10 years he’s been selling his handmade, premium chocolates at the Shops at Dole Cannery, where he is also able to base his candy-making operation.

What the second-floor shop lacks is foot traffic.

“That’s been a problem. I’m well aware,” Padovani said, but he’ll be getting traffic aplenty at his new chocolate stand, at The Street food hall in Waikiki’s International Market Place.

He moved a selection of chocolates in last week, filling a 6-foot temperature-controlled showcase with morsels made at the Cannery location. You’ll find Padovani at the counter most evenings.

“It’s going to create an ambience for the chocolate,” he said of the new spot.

Padovani uses Valrhona chocolate as his raw ingredient, incorporating many local flavors — apple banana, Kona coffee, Manoa honey, ginger, pineapple Kauai sea salt, macadamia nut and a special Pirie mango, to name a few.

They sell for $3 to $4 each, but for the complete Padovani presentation, he’s got an array of specialty boxes that can be customized with a choice of candies — and reused to hold jewelry or other keepsakes when the sweets are gone.

One emulates a crocodile-skin purse, for example; another would carry a bottle of liquor, with chocolates tucked into a drawer underneath. All of these have made the move to Waikiki.

And speaking of liquor: He’s made a hobby of hunting down bottles of highly allocated whiskeys and cognacs. For an investment of sometimes $100 a bottle, he can make 900 chocolates, the liquor infusing the ganache fillings, he says. Then he sells the empty bottles to collectors for $20 or so.

He tastes, but doesn’t drink much bourbon himself.

“No. I’m a Champagne drinker.”