A Sophisticated Journey – Interview with Kathy Johnston, Chief Chocolate Officer at Mirzam

A Sophisticated Journey

Kathy Johnston, Chief Chocolate Officer at Mirzam on creating bespoke confectionary and the art of chocolate making

WORDS: SARAH JOSEPH

Can you tell us about the concept of beanto-bar chocolate making and how well this has been received in the region and beyond? Craft chocolate or bean-to-bar chocolate is the concept of making chocolate itself, as opposed to a chocolatier who buys readymade chocolate. Be it the ingredients for truffles or any other chocolates, everything is handpicked. By making the chocolate ourselves with a focus on well-sourced ingredients, it gives an opportunity to our customers to connect directly with the core ingredients transparently. For us it’s important for everyone to see the process, understand where they’ve come from and learn more about the overall food manufacturing system. Within the UAE, we’ve discovered a wonderful community of dark chocolate lovers who are extremely knowledgeable and well informed, as they’ve supported us along the way. Our chocolates are available internationally as well, and we’ve recently added a couple of international awards to our list, that now reaches a total of 22. Some ingredients belong to the spice route from 100 years ago. Tell us more? Dubai is located along the historical spice trading route. This is a sailing path, which follows the coast from the Arabian Gulf to Sri Lanka, India and then further afield through to the southern tropical tip of Japan. Dhows sailed along the route, with their captains using the stars for navigation (Mirzam is the name of a star) and gathered the spices from the places they passed, to sell in the markets and souks in our region. With integrity at the core, how do you consistently innovate whilst maintaining these values? Our cycle of recipe development and production looks to the historical spice trading stories to guide all of our themes, stories and creativity. This overarching brand theme, together with the quality of our production process and transparency, are a part of our commitment. With the factory always visible and open daily to the public to visit, it’s really simpler for us to communicate what we do to our customers and show them how simple it is to make chocolate with only two to three ingredients, never more. It needs to be a very natural product. Mirzam works with talented artists from around the globe – how do you approach these collaborations? When we have a planned collection in the pipeline, I start looking through the work of artists who’ve submitted their portfolios to us. It’s imperative to find someone with the right style to suit the recipes or seasonal collections that we’ve been working on. We always work with artists who create work by hand, be it illustration or painting, to reflect that the chocolate and art are both handmade. This is The Integrity Issue – what does integrity mean to you? Integrity means being transparent and credible, with every layer of what we do.