Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.12.2014, Qupperneq 16

16
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2014
The Elfschool
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Erró, Two Faces, 1985.Andreas Eriksson, Almoso 113, 2003.
Candy| Yum!
Words by John Rogers
Photo by Hörður Sveinsson
All You Need
Is Love.
And Chocolate
But, reality is often stranger than fic-
tion, and out on the Seltjarnarnes penin-
sula, a small chocolate factory inside an
abandoned gas station office is exactly
what you’ll find. Behind a pair of now-
automated pink petrol pumps, the win-
dows of a wind-whipped former mini-
mart are brightly lit; the door bears a
simple, distinctive logo that's becoming
very familiar to Iceland's chocolate lov-
ers. The logo spells out the words Om
Nom. Indeed.
Right place, right time
At the gas station office-cum-chocolate
factory, we're met by the boundlessly
enthusiastic Kjartan Gíslason—the man
in charge of Om Nom's chocolate-mak-
ing process—dressed in a white chef's
outfit and apron. Behind him, bars of
chocolate are being hand-wrapped and
stacked in the hundreds; through a large
window, we can observe the inner room,
where a collection of apparatuses does
the various tasks necessary to create all
that chocolate.
How did this operation end up in a
petrol station office? “We heard a pastry
chef that ran a small business here was
moving out and eager to sell,” smiles
Kjartan, “so it was just a case of being
at the right place at the right time. We
constantly help tourists with the pumps,
and give them directions to Geysir and
Gullfoss."
Cacao, cacao
We pass a colourful display showing the
nine varieties that form Om Nom's cur-
rent range. The air is thick with the deli-
cious smell of cacao beans. “Our beans
are sourced through an agent,” ex-
plains Kjartan, guiding us through the
glass door and between the brightly
coloured, noisy machines. “He works
directly with farmers in Madagascar,
Papua New Guinea, Belize and the Do-
minican Republic—all organic and fair
trade certified.”
He reaches into a sack of beans at
the back of the packed room, letting
them run through his fingers. “After
the bean is harvested, it's fermented,
and then dried at the plantation,” he
continues. “We then carefully roast
our beans in different ways accord-
ing to what chocolate we are making.
For instance, milk chocolate tends
to get a heavier roast, while our dark
has a custom light roast to retain all
the characteristics that really set our
chocolate apart.”
Kjartan hands us some of the rough
brown roasted shells, and shows us
how to crack them open. Inside is the
bitter, crumbly, dark brown bean that
lies at the start of the chocolate-mak-
ing process. “These are called nibs,
the inner core of the bean, that is re-
ally chocolate in its purest form,” says
Kjartan. “After the process of winnow-
ing, or removing and blowing away the
shells, we grind these nibs into a fine
paste, before adding sugar, and any ex-
tra ingredients, such as milk powder
for milk chocolate. For example, our
biggest seller is the lakkrís and sea salt
flavour—we use a raw liquorice root
powder that really gives it pungent af-
tertaste, and sea salt from Saltverk in
the Westfjörds.”
Further down the
rabbit hole
After the grinding, Kjartan demonstrates
how the chocolate is churned and tem-
pered, set into moulds, the excess scraped
off and any extras such as crushed nuts
added, before being placed in large re-
frigerators to solidify. The whole process
from bean to bar takes around five work-
ing days.
It's a fascinating whirlwind tour of
the chocolate-making process. “Being a
chef I have a just healthy amount of cu-
riosity about how things are made,” Kjar-
tan says. “I felt compelled to master it. It
was just one of those
ideas that gained more
momentum the fur-
ther we went down
the rabbit hole. I was
roasting beans in my
oven every day for six
months, and hand-
grinding. My place
smelled like brownies
all the time, and my
neighbours thought
I was obsessed with
night-baking.”
But his experi-
ments led to some
heartening success.
“My first real batch
was made with beans
that came from Ven-
ezuela,” Kjartan says. “It was a dark 70%
recipe and it really was the best chocolate
I'd ever tasted. It gave me the confidence
boost to carry on—it was a great moment,
and a feeling of achievement. At that time
I didn't have the machinery that we
use now, especially the winnower, so
all the beans had to be de-shelled by
hand, which was a bittersweet experi-
ence. I watched the 'Mad Men' series
in its entirety, whilst de-shelling nibs
until my fingers were blistered. But it
was worth it.”
A calling, its reward
Seeing the reaction of the lucky few who
got to try his early batches, it became ap-
parent that Kjartan was onto something.
Drawn to both the flavour and the busi-
ness potential, the Om Nom team start-
ed to form. “Me and
my childhood friend
Óskar Þórðarsson
started talking about
it, which led to us ex-
perimenting with dif-
ferent types of beans
and roasting,” Kjartan
recalls. “We asked
André Úlfur Visage to
do illustrations for the
packaging. His great
work really brought
the product to life, and
inspired us to keep in-
vesting time and effort
until we were happy
with our chocolate.
During this time, we
also brought in a fellow
culinary team member to help the devel-
opment, pastry chef and baker Karl Viggó
Vigfússon.”
It’s clear to see that Kjartan has found
his calling in the Om Nom operation. He
discusses every detail of the beans, the
process, his subtly differing batches, add-
ed flavours and future experiments with
a fervent passion. As the tour winds up,
we get to taste each recipe, and each fla-
vour is spine-tinglingly good. “The Mad-
agascar bean has this really wonderful
red berry taste, and a nice finish of citrus
fruit acidity,” Kjartan says, smiling at the
delight on our faces. “It really is one of our
favourite beans, so fruity and jammy. The
Papua New Guinea beans have a strong
contrast with the Madagascar. The main
reason we use it is the intense smokiness
of the beans—the natives in Papa New
Guinea have a tradition of smoking the
beans in order to accelerate the drying
process. So it also carries hints of oak,
leather, pipe tobacco and whiskey. It kind
of reminds me of going on a horseback
ride in Iceland.”
With overseas demand growing, two
new festive flavours coming out for the
Christmas holidays, and some exciting
expansions to their current range in the
works, it seems like Om Nom is a com-
pany that will continue to flourish in the
coming year. “Here at Om Nom we don’t
really feel like we are making a luxury
product, but rather a fine chocolate that's
as good as it gets,” Kjartan says, as we say
goodbye. “We are really passionate about
our work. Everybody here feels very for-
tunate working with such a great ingre-
dient, and its the most rewarding thing I
have done in my life.”
Imagine an abandoned gas station office. A few things might
spring to mind. An empty room with peeling walls, seen only
by kids who've snuck in to smoke a joint. A dark, dusty old
shack you could set a horror movie in. Of the various mental
images the phrase “abandoned gas station office” might con-
jure, “small chocolate factory” surely isn’t one.
“We are really passion-
ate about our work. Ev-
erybody here feels very
fortunate working with
such a great ingredi-
ent, and it's the most
rewarding thing I have
done in my life."
Starting as a late-night experiment,
Om Nom is an Icelandic success
story