Oregon Chocolatier Wins Fans Nationally Even The White House Staff Takes Notice

On the wall at Bob Dahl’s Renaissance Chocolate in Ashland is a letter from a Clinton White House staffer thanking the chocolatier “for your service to tummy and country.”

In front of the counter is chocolate, chocolate, chocolate - the Keiko Bar (15 percent goes to the Free Willy Foundation in Newport), the Britt Bar (sold at the Peter Britt Festivals), the Shakes Bar (sold at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Support Bars (one for AIDS research, one for breast cancer) and other yummies.

Dahl counts among his creations a chocolate piano for Neil Young and a chocolate Oscar for Sylvester Stallone.

He is providing chocolate - Belgian, mind you - to David Letterman’s TV show and trying to get his latest creation, the Rosie Dream Bar, on Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show.

“It’s just a matter of time,” he says.

When he was a boy growing up in Pennsylvania, Dahl used to tour the Hershey factory.

“That was when they’d let you in the real factory,” he says.

But things weren’t always coming up chocolate for Dahl. He remembers the Thanksgiving Day he spent eating pizza at a Portland 7-Eleven waiting for a load of Christmas trees.

“That was it,” he says. “I said, ‘I’m outta here.”’

Dahl had spent a year in the tree business in Portland following a stint as a stockbroker in Bellingham, Wash. Those jobs came after a decade in marketing with a consulting engineering firm in Bellingham. The company specialized in plastics, and Dahl used to begin speeches by referring to the scene in the movie “The Graduate” in which an older man counsels Dustin Hoffman’s character: “Plastics.”

By the time Dahl met a couple of guys who were talking about starting a chocolate business, he was working in a bank. One of his partners-to-be was an experienced chocolate hand, and the other a retired dentist; neither had a marketing background.

They did their first promotional reception at an interior design house in Portland.

“It just took off,” Dahl says.

Starting out in his Portland home that summer, he was soon making gift items such as truffles for doctors and dentists. A breakthrough came at a men’s fashion show at Saks Fifth Avenue in Portland in December 1993. People at the show were asking if he’d be back for Christmas as they gobbled rich Belgian chocolate.

“Ask him,” Dahl said, indicating the store manager.

He wound up doing a presentation to Saks’ corporate buyer in New York. He closed the deal, and Saks had Belgian chocolate in nearly 50 stores all over the country.

When Dahl became the sole owner of Renaissance, he decided to move the business to Ashland.

“It’s a central location, I like the weather and I can operate the business wherever I want,” he says.

His shop is divided into a small coffee and espresso bar, a tiny patio above a hypericum-covered terrace, a shop area where he makes the good stuff and office space.

Dahl employs one person. In-house sales are 15 percent of his gross, which he declines to reveal; 85 percent comes from his business around the nation.

He’ll come up with specialty chocolate creations for weddings, receptions, anniversaries, whatever. Most are $15 to $25, although some can run $100 or more.

The difference between Belgian and other chocolates is something you understand by tasting. It’s not as sweet as milk chocolate, but it’s smoother, richer. The chocolate is imported from Europe.

“A 12-year-old boy told me the other day he didn’t usually like dark chocolate, but he liked it,” Dahl says.

He admits to nibbling his wares.

“Probably an ounce a day,” he says, pointing to studies that found that chocolate contains high levels of chemicals known as phenolics. Scientists think the stuff may work in a way similar to the anti-oxidants in red wine to reduce the risk of heart disease.