SETH: After his success with The Conche, Chef Santosh opened up a chocolate studio in nearby Sterling, which is where I'm meeting up with him today.

He's here somewhere... ♪ ♪ SANTOSH: Seth?

Seth?

Seth!

SETH: Sorry.

Chef, nice to meet you.

I got distracted by the literal chocolate factory that you're running here.

SANTOSH: Welcome to my playground.

We have here, chocolatier, Veronica, she's packaging our strawberry basil truffles.

And I'm going to walk you through all the toys we have here.

SETH: Oh, please.

SANTOSH: So this is a milk chocolate tempering unit.

SETH: And there's no shame in liking milk chocolate, right?

SANTOSH: Oh, no.

The next unit we have here, this is our chocolate panner.

We kind of use it for covering the nuts with chocolate.

Then we have our Galileo, which is used specifically for making our figurines.

Then we have our big guy here, so this is our chocolate enrobing line.

So we have Kathleen here and then Emily.

So they're enrobing our s'mores chocolate bon-bons.

We have a curtain of dark chocolate.

SETH: A waterfall of dark chocolate.

SANTOSH: Waterfall.

And then we have a blower here so it blows off excess chocolate.

And then we have a heater in the top and the bottom to regulate the heat, and then it goes on the conveyor belt and goes to the cooling tunnel.

So this is where... SETH: This is the I Love Lucy part of the operation right here.

And can you just pull the chocolates right off?

SANTOSH: Yeah, you can pick one from the front here.

SETH: All right.

So all these chocolates, everything you're making in this factory, a lot of this is going to go over to the restaurant in Leesburg?

SANTOSH: Correct.

Yeah.

So this is going to be packaged now and we are going to transport it to the restaurant in Leesburg, where we make all the other chocolates and desserts.

That's where we make our signature dish.

SETH: Well, I cannot wait to try some more chocolate.

SANTOSH: Let's go to the restaurant.

SETH: Let's do it.

SANTOSH: Seth, welcome to our kitchen here at The Conche in Leesburg.

I made a plate for you to start.

SETH: Aw, I'm touched.

SANTOSH: Thank you.

So I'm making the Conche Chocolate Entremet.

SETH: Entremet.

That sounds pretty fancy.

What's involved with that?

SANTOSH: So the entremet is a cake, it's built inside the dome and then it's revealed in the table.

SETH: Oh, so there's going to be a little bit of a show.

SANTOSH: Yes.

Yeah.

And to start, I'm going to dust off some of the gold luster I have here.

SETH: This is edible gold?

SANTOSH: Yeah, edible gold.

And then I'm going to secure this on the plate.

So the whole idea of coming up with this dish is to do a birthday cake.

So we have our uh, uh, sour cream chocolate cake.

So the first disk is going to go in the bottom.

SETH: So this dish is really a birthday cake in disguise.

SANTOSH: Correct.

SETH: Who needs a boring old birthday cake, right?

SANTOSH: Exactly.

I'm going to pipe the whipped chocolate ganache.

So this one is straightforward, 64% dark chocolate ganache.

SETH: And 64% is not too dark.

SANTOSH: So then I'm going to top with some of our crunchy balls here.

These are just cereal coated in dark chocolate.

Then the second layer is going to go on top.

This is the milk chocolate whipped ganache.

And then I'm going to sprinkle some of our pop rock candies.

And then the third layer is going to be for the white chocolate.

SETH: All right, so you're pro milk chocolate and you're pro white chocolate?

SANTOSH: Exactly.

SETH: What do you say to the haters on white chocolate?

SANTOSH: White chocolate just has your milk powder and cocoa butter and sugar, so technically it's not a chocolate.

SETH: Not a chocolate, just something tasty.

SANTOSH: Exactly.

Then I'm going to sprinkle our Oreo cookie crumble.

SETH: This is just a fun dish.

SANTOSH: Everything in here.

SETH: Everything but the kitchen sink.

SANTOSH: Exactly.

SETH: Which would probably be made out of chocolate.

Right?

SANTOSH: So then I'm going to top off with our passion fruit caramel sauce.

So this is to balance the sweetness because of the tartness from the passion fruit.

Now that the cake has been built, the next step is going to be the ice creams.

We have the vanilla bean ice creams, salted caramel and chocolate ice cream.

I'm going to take the other dome, dust with the edible gold luster, and then slightly melt the edges, and place it on top so they can fuse it together.

Then we are going to put on the dessert cart and be ready for the show.

Here it is, Seth.

SETH: Wow.

I'm ready.

SANTOSH: Are you ready?

SETH: I'm ready for the show to begin, Chef.

SANTOSH: I'm going to be lighting this with the 151-proof rum.

Be careful with the fire.

SETH: Oh ho-ho.

♪ ♪ SANTOSH: There it is.

SETH: Goodbye dome.

Hello, beautiful birthday cake.

Wow.

SANTOSH: Also, we'll pour salted caramel sauce on it.

Enjoy.

SETH: Well, it doesn't get much more dramatic than this.

I'm going to see how many different flavors I can get in one bite.

Get out of town.

Oh my goodness.

SANTOSH: That's your birthday cake.

Yeah.

SETH: That is... You have taken the birthday cake to the next level.

Oh, and even that little bit of passion fruit syrup in there.

I think I picked up a little bit of residual rum that you used to light it on fire.

All those play together so nicely, and I think I got all the flavors, but there's probably a few more hidden in there somewhere.

This is also fun because you can kind of make a mess with your food a little bit.

SANTOSH: Yeah.

Memorable mess.

SETH: I like how you have the sweetness and the crunch, but the little bit of dark chocolate there at the bottom too.

It gives it that little bit of bitterness.

There's just too much going on.

SANTOSH: All comes together, right?

SETH: Well, I don't think I knew before I came in here just how versatile of an ingredient chocolate really can be.

SANTOSH: Yeah, chocolate is similar to coffee or wine, so it has a lot of character.

The flavor profile has a fruity note, some acidic tones to it, and how you utilize in many different ways, and that's what we showcase here.

SETH: Well, I think I'm going to have to have all my birthdays in the future here at The Conche.

This entremet was really something else.

SANTOSH: Thank you so much.

SETH: Thank you.