Marble & Steel Craft Chocolates LLC
Marble and Steel Craft Chocolates is a handmade craft chocolate online boutique located just south of Asheville NC. Serving locally and the greater WNC area, as well was online orders for domestic shipping. We specialize in chocolate bon bons, chocolate bars, custom orders and a variety of chocolate specialties. We carefully hand paint and airbrush each mould, working in small batches to deliver an exquisite chocolate experience that we take great pride in creating.
About us!
John was born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. From a young age he loved to learn, build, and create using food as an artform. After spending countless years cooking and baking with his family, John pursued his passion to become a chef by going to culinary school. He attended The Florida Culinary Institute, located in West Palm Beach where he earned degrees in Culinary Arts and International Baking and Pastry. In addition, he traveled to Montreal and studied an advanced chocolate course at the Cocoa-Barry school of chocolate.
John started his professional career working in various upscale restaurants, which led him to the Ritz- Carlton resorts in West Palm Beach, and the Ritz Tiburon in Naples, FL. He then followed his passion to work with his favorite medium, Chocolate! He started working at Norman Love Confections, located in Fort Myers, FL. Where he rose from entry level chocolatier, to production manager and then ultimately head pastry chef. Over a span of almost 15 years he created cutting edge pastries, custom chocolate showpieces, taught chocolate and pastry classes, created a custom line of pastries featured on Princess Cruise lines, and competed in many state and nationally recognized competitions. He was awarded first place in the Florida pastry challenge, and Pastry Chef of the year at the US pastry competition in 2017.
John is currently the executive pastry chef at the historic Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. He leads a kitchen where his team supplies decadent cakes, breads, pastries and high end specialty desserts to the resorts many outlets. He is in charge of building and decorating the life-size gingerbread house featured in the lobby of the hotel each holiday season. John also is on the judging panel for the National Gingerbread house competition that is held each year.