Max Brenner’s chocolate story
ISRAELI-born chocolatier Max Brenner was in Australia this month to open his 15th Australian store and talked about his chocolate empire. Photo: Ben Weinstein
DALIA SABLE
MAX Brenner wanted to be an author. So it seems surprising that he ended up becoming a world-famous chocolatier.
“My life is a good example of this famous slogan, ‘life happens to you when you are busy doing other things’,” Brenner told The AJN. To support his writing, Israeli-born Brenner took a course in pastry making, a trade that eventually took him to Europe to learn and work with “very special and unique artists in sugar and confectionery”. He ended up in Paris, where the then 28-year-old was introduced to the art of chocolate. Then in 1995, he headed back to Israel and opened his first chocolate shop. “In a way it became like my novel, my chocolate story. Today I express and tell everything through this. This is like my three-dimensional book,” he said. With his brand well developed in Israel, Brenner’s business partner suggested bringing the famous gourmet chocolate to Australia. Being the entrepreneur that he is, Brenner took the idea one step further, deciding instead to open his first-ever “chocolate bar”. His first Australian store was in Sydney’s Paddington and was closely followed by more. In the process, he spawned a signature chocolate culture, which now boasts 23 stores in five countries. “To me culture is something that combines different elements. The idea behind this concept is to take all the emotions, associations, stories and traditions connected with chocolate and create all kinds of things,” he said. And the Max Brenner story continues, with a line of chocolate-based skincare products in the works. “For me it’s just another element, just another aspect of this story that we are telling. I am always travelling and looking for new ideas, for new stories,” he said. “Already a few years ago I saw that chocolate butter was such a big ingredient in cosmetics and spa products and I thought if this place is an emporium of chocolate, we must have this as part of the story … This captures the idea of the chocolate culture. It is not just about taste, it is also about beauty and body.” Despite the growth of the company, Brenner is a humble, unassuming man, with the mantra “chocolate has no boundaries”. He says the sweet treat does not discriminate against age, gender or status — simply, “everybody loves chocolate”. But his passion for the cocoa bean doesn’t obscure his nuanced view of the world. When asked about politics and specifically about the protests at his Sydney stores — seen as a symbol of Israel — earlier this year, Brenner was quick to respond. “Everything that has to do with conflict seems stupid to me. I am a very peaceful person. Whether it is in Israel, or not, anything to do with violence, aggressiveness or appearing at protests or boycotts seems silly [to me]. But then again I am just a chocolate maker. I am just a tiny person who loves beautiful things.”
“Life took me to this spot,” he said. “And still I thought I would just have this one little store and write. And I opened up another store and another store and another and that was it. Max Brenner took over.
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