Mast Brothers Chocolate is one of only a handful of “bean to bar” chocolate makers in America and the only one in New York City. This means they buy their beans from the source and roast them themselves. Rick, the chief chocolate maker, is a former cook who’s worked at Gramercy Tavern and Soho House as well as at Jacques Torres’s chocolate factory in Manhattan. Michael, who comes from the financial side of film and TV production, focuses more on business matters. The brothers grew up in Iowa City, Iowa, and have been known to wear beard nets in the kitchen.
What’s the main reason you decided to become chocolate makers?
RICK: In restaurants, you have to deal with annoying customers. But with chocolate, anytime people talk about it, they start smiling. When they taste it, even if it’s bad chocolate, they’re like, “Oh, this is great!” Also the idea that this kind of chocolate making is brand-new. The way the microbrewery scene was about twenty years ago, that’s where chocolate is now. There’s just this untrodden path.
So it’s sometime in 2007 and you say to yourselves …
RICK: I had finished at Jacques Torres, and I talked to my brother—I’m an idea guy, right? And I love food. I’m a food idea guy. My brother is much more business-minded. So I’ve always given him ideas, saying, Here’s something we could do. My whole life, he’s always been like, “Rick, shut up.” But when I told him about this bean-to-bar chocolate idea, he said, “You might be onto something here.” I was like, “What?! All right!” We were roommates at the time, and we decided we were gonna live apart for the summer, and just get away from the idea and see if we were still eager to do it. And if we were, on September 4, 2007, we were gonna do it. We were, and so we did.
How much chocolate can you make in your factory?
MICHAEL: We’re doing about 2,000 to 2,500 bars a week now. We could probably double that before outgrowing this space. We joke lately that we started out reading about and being passionate about and loving making chocolate. Next thing you know, we’re reading books on management.
Your beans come from farmers in Madagascar, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. Do you blend the beans or keep them separate?
RICK: Pretty separate right now. We really want to work with the origins for a while and develop those relationships, then we’ll start blending.
What kind of sugar do you use?
RICK: We’re actually in the middle of doing sugar experiments. There are two general schools of thought in chocolate making. Do you choose your sugar like you would choose a cocoa bean? From the best region, the best flavor, and all that stuff? Or does that just detract from the cacao flavor you’re going for, and so you should use a general sugar instead. We’ve tended to use the fancy raw cane sugars from exotic regions, but we just bought a bunch of Domino’s sugar just to see what would happen.
MICHAEL: It just depends on what bean we’re working on. The beauty of being small is being able to switch things up a little bit more. Not every batch tastes exactly the same, but that’s kind of the fun of what we do.
You’ve talked about doing a “chocolate board” dessert at Frankies 457 and Prime Meats—like a cheese board, except with chocolate. Will we see that on those menus soon?
MICHAEL: We’re getting some new beans in from different regions, and I think we’re going to wait until we have those. Because I think part of the fun is having variety—different regions so people can really tell the difference, and really get the true flavors of the beans.
When you were first getting started, you bartered chocolate to the Marlow & Sons guys in exchange for your convection oven. Many words have been spilled about Brooklyn’s we’re-all-in-this-togetherness. What’s your take on that?
RICK: Well, I think it’s more common here. Most people who come to New York arrive with ambitions and stars in their eyes—they want to do something. Same for the people who end up in Brooklyn, which historically is such a tight community, but Brooklyn combines those two things. So you’ve got these ambitious creators who are drawn to Brooklyn because of the community vibe. When I get off the subway here from Manhattan, I breathe a big sigh of relief.