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If Jackson Pollock were a chocolatier, his confections might look something like the geometric, paint-splashed gems coming out of Brandon Olsen's kitchen. Each of Brandon's chocolate is like a tiny work of art, captivating Toronto foodies, spurring collabs with The Drake Hotel and attracting a clientele that includes Holt Renfrew, ET Canada, and the Canadian Opera Company.

Since opening Chocolates x Brandon Olsen, a boutique chocolate shop off College Street West, Brandon has expanded his reputation from the celebrated chef de cuisine of the Black Hoof and Bar Isabel to Toronto’s very own Willy Wonka. It’s not everyday you meet a chef-turned-chocolatier but for Brandon, sugar is simply in his blood.

Across his rib cage is a direct quote from Mr. Wonka himself: Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple. “This is the pretty much the recipe of how I’m made,” Brandon explains. In fact, before perfecting the art of charcuterie and making Nutella foie gras a thing of epic reputation at the Black Hoof, Brandon moved to Toronto with the hopes of becoming a pastry chef.

“With Toronto’s restaurant economy, small restaurants just don’t have the budget for a dedicated pastry chef,” he says. “But it’s always been a personal mandate of mine to spend time in the pastry department of every restaurant I’ve worked in.”