Eileen Battersby, looking for directions, knocks on the door of a chocolate maker hovering over a tray of Easter eggs.
Round and round, three wheels, each at work in a separate tank, rotate in unison. The surfaces ripple and ooze and settle briefly into smooth, subtle shimmers of luxury. The effect is mesmerising; the scent, particularly from the third and darkest, bizarrely tactile liquid body of promise, is seductive.
It is risky, sending in a susceptible outsider to survey this splendour. It would be so easy to allow the senses to take over, to plunge both hands into any one of the vats. Even sticking a furtive finger in would be poor form, if understandable. Yes, they did take a chance - you don't send a chocolate fiend who is, albeit unofficially, probably one of the world's finest living authorities on chocolate into a chocolate master's workshop. In fact, nobody has sent me. Like a moth to an electric light I discover it for myself. On a Saturday morning, I am looking for directions to a heritage site and notice an open yard gate.
Inside a small building a figure is moving about. The man looks up. Before him stretches an expanse of smooth, brown mounds, like tiny Newgranges. Each mound is half of an Easter egg.
Ferdinand Vandaele is the maestro behind Chez Emily. He is from Belgium, a country that takes fine chocolate very seriously. In the United States - a world power yet nevertheless dependent on quality imports from Europe - chocolate lovers bow to Swiss chocolate and welcome German and Austrian, but lustrous tears of gratitude invariably flow on the arrival of a box of Belgian chocolates - an essential luxury.
Belgians and their chocolate artistry travel well. This chocolate workshop is at Coolquay, in north Co Dublin. Vandaele and his wife, Helena Hemeryck, who was born in Ireland of Belgian parents, established Chez Emily 10 years ago, naming it after their daughter, and set out to create quality Belgian chocolate in Ireland. They have. He makes it. She sells it.
The three cooling vats contain the secret. White, milk and dark - each is cooling down from 45 degrees to a working temperature of 30 degrees. When the chocolate reaches 30 degrees it is poured into moulds. It must be difficult working with chocolate. After all, how can you resist putting your fingers into it? Vandaele bestows a benign smile and says: "It is not such a good thing to eat the chocolate when it is in the vat."
He takes a rabbit mould, holds it upside down and pours warm liquid chocolate into it, eradicating all air bubbles. He will fill each mould three times, ensuring the shells are thick. Even the most stoic of humans would feel their mouths watering. This reporter, though not stoic, remains in control, just about. My fingers hover near, but not in, any of the vats, although the milk chocolate looks good enough to drink. And then there is the aroma, particularly that of the dark chocolate, with its 70 per cent cocoa content.
He opens a refrigerator door. The shelves hold further rabbits, now standing upright as fully fledged, grinning Easter bunnies. There are also hens and, of course, eggs, in all sizes. It takes them about 20 minutes to set.
On another table, in a corner of the workshop, is an assortment of handmade chocolates. There are 36 types, including the Flake Truffle Supreme, the Nutty Praline and, let us not forget, the Honey and Almond. The most recent creation is Java Coffee. "It only comes in white chocolate," Vandaele says, "because coffee flavour comes out best with white chocolate."
It is all a long way from the Yucatán Peninsula and Central America, where the Maya people discovered the potential of cacao - the bean-like seeds from which cocoa, cocoa butter and chocolate are made - in an art that had been pioneered by an earlier civilisation, that of the Olmec, a culture which evolved in the humid lowlands of the Mexican Gulf coast about 1500 BC. The Olmec people are believed to have been the first to make chocolate from cacao. Anyone embarrassed about admitting to feelings of desire and/or greed in relation to chocolate should find justification from this historical dimension - I know I do. Chocolate has immense historical and cultural relevance. Now eat on - I mean read on.
Like a surgeon or an engineer, Vandaele discusses his work with a restraint and professional detachment. He points to various chocolates, their shapes and their fillings, talks about the design aesthetics of cups versus rectangles and refers me to his website. Not once do I see him linger over any chocolate.
An assistant is busy, packing boxes. She, too, appears unmoved by the proximity of all these riches. I am salivating. I had better leave. Even the lollipops featuring chicks emerging from shells could be at risk. After two visits I have not sampled, nor been offered, a single chocolate.
In the busy commuter town of Ashbourne, chocolate lovers now travel to Chez Emily's Chocolate Boutique. The couple opened the shop 18 months ago, and Hemeryck has noticed that many customers have adopted a connoisseur's approach. "There are two women, and they have been coming in and buying two chocolates each, and this way they have worked their way through the range. They have got to know the chocolates." They sound like wine tasters. "Yes, it is like that. These chocolates have to be eaten slowly and not too many at once."
Aside from the beautiful design of the individual chocolates, the presentation - including novelty boxes and tasteful wrappings - also has that continental charm. "I source all my packaging in Belgium," she says, and explains how she and her husband set out to create something that will last.
She believes in chocolate as a food, and stresses it is good to eat it, particularly dark chocolate. "In Belgium people eat a few squares at breakfast." Sounds good to me: chocolate should feature in every meal and throughout the day. But however gratifying and even romantic it seems, this is a serious, and seasonal, business.
"There are peaks and lows: Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter. The summer is very quiet," says Hemeryck. The most popular chocolate is the flake praline truffle. She takes down a box, exhibits it, then puts it back. The display cases show off the range of handmade chocolates, all begging to be eaten. Boxes of chocolates are on sale, yet most customers would probably elect to choose their favourites, which they can do by buying an empty box, available in a number of sizes, and filling it. Be warned: the greatest test for any customer is decision. I want to eat everything to appease my tantalised senses. Such is the allure of one of life's enduring pleasures.
Chez Emily is at Coolquay, The Ward, Co Dublin and Main Street, Ashbourne, Co Meath, 01-8352252, www.chezemily.ie
WHERE TO SHOP FOR IRISH ARTISAN CHOCOLATES
Butler's Irish Handmade Chocolates www.butlerschocolates.com
Cocoa Bean Artisan Chocolates www.cocoabeanchocolates.com
Danucci Gourmet Chocolate Company www.danucci.com
Lily O'Brien's www.lilyobriens.ie
Lir Handmade Chocolates www.lircafe.com
Skelligs Chocolate Co www.skellingschocolate.com