New chocolate shop brings artisan bonbons to Chandler

Most chefs won’t touch chocolate with a ten-foot pole, because it is such a different, meticulous process compared to other cooking and baking. 

But David Chandler, owner of the newly opened Chandy’s Candies, said his experience outside of the kitchen prepared him to be a chocolatier. 

Chandler grew up in Arizona and studied art in college. He worked in a variety of industries, from hotels to pharmaceuticals, data management and machine learning. When working for the hotel industry in the early 2000s, he moved to New Jersey. While there, he took a course at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. 

He says those experiences influence his chocolate-making process. His art background helps him produce visually stunning bonbons. His data background helps him with the chemistry of mixing chocolates and his foodie heart made chocolate the perfect medium. 

It took Chandler five months to build out the chocolate shop. He got his hands dirty, putting up the walls, pouring concrete and installing the tiles himself. He said laying tile is a lot like chocolatiering. He pours and smooths chocolate like mortar between tiles, tapping it to release bubbles, much like pushing tiles to remove air pockets. Finally, he scrapes both with a spatula.

“When we opened the door July 7, I gave up my tile spatula for a chocolate spatula,” Chandler says, recalling completing the shop’s renovation. “It reminded me of when I hiked the Grand Canyon. I hiked to the bottom of it, and then the next day, I looked up, I’m like, ‘Oh God, what have I done?’ But you just keep moving forward.”

Chandy’s Candies, located in Chandler off Interstate 10 and Ray Road next to AJ’s Fine Foods, is a boutique chocolate shop with only two employees: David and his husband, Julian Ochoa.

It sells intricate bonbons, flavored chocolate bars and seasonal collections. The most popular item is the key lime chocolate bar which starts with real key lime zest, and the banana bread chocolate bar. 

Chandler, who sometimes goes by the nickname Chandy man, says his favorite item is the seasonal marzipan, which will be available closer to Christmas. Right now, they have Dubai bites, which are mini versions of the viral Dubai chocolate bars, jack-o-lantern-shaped pumpkin-spice flavored bonbons and skull-shaped bonbons. 

Chandler says he is constantly making chocolate, because even though chocolate has a pretty long shelf life, the taste is not as good a couple of days after it is made.

“A lot of customers probably can’t tell. I can tell, and I just won’t serve that out to folks if I don’t like it,” Chandler says. 

Along with crafting beautiful treats, his mission is also to source and sell ethically produced chocolate. Globally, 60% of the cocoa supply comes from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where more than 1.5 million children work on cocoa farms, according to the Department of Labor. Chandler says when he learned of the practice, he was shocked and decided he wanted to make chocolate the right way.

“From the beginning, I felt it’s extremely important that chocolate only tastes good if people are treated nicely along the way,” Chandler said. “Unfortunately, my first batch completely sucked, and my coworkers told me that. It tasted good, but it’s ugly as hell.”

He spent the next 20 years learning through research, traveling, dissecting chocolates and old-fashioned trial and error. He said he was finally able to crack the code and produced a type of bonbons called Belgian pralines that are distinct from chocolate truffles. The bonbons include a chocolate shell and a soft, filled center.

He hopes not just to avoid forced labor, but also to protect animals from dangerous chocolate-making practices. Part of the chocolate-making process involves separating cocoa from cocoa butter. Many major chocolate companies then substitute the cocoa butter for palm oil, which comes from palm trees grown in deforested areas of rainforests. Deforestation impacts a lot of the animals in that ecosystem, including orangutans. 

When Chandler learned this, he came across an organization called The Orangutan Project. The organization sponsored orangutans in Indonesia. Chandler and Ochoa “fostered” two orangutans named Rocky and Rockina.

“I just started to do that because I felt like I wanted to be a little bit different than the other chocolate companies,” Chandler says, reiterating his commitment to ethical chocolate. “Instead of harming them, I wanted to support them.”

In one corner of the shop, a golden statue of a monkey sits on a shelf. It is a visual reminder of Chandler and Ochoa’s fostered orangutans. The shop has a modern, white look with blue and gold accents. A display case lights the dozens of chocolate goodies within. 

The store is open in Chandler Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Sundays, the shop is closed, but you can still find the chocolates at High Street Market and on Saturdays at the Roadrunner, Gilbert and Chandler markets.

Despite being open for a few months, the store has yet to have its grand opening ceremony. The owners plan to celebrate on Oct. 24 with a ribbon-cutting between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. The party will be “Willy Wonka” themed, with some customers getting a golden ticket that could be a percentage off their next purchase or a coupon for free chocolate. 

For Chandler, it’s all part of the dream — to make chocolate that looks good, tastes good and does good.

Chandy’s Candies

7131 W. Ray Road # 32, Chandler