Meet the innovative chocolatiers behind Asia’s finest chocolate creations

In 2025, the chocolate company continues its expansion, opening Auro Bistro in Alabang. The new location offers, apart from sweet treats such as the pan Auro chocolat and the white choco ensaymada doughnut, all-day breakfast, Filipino fare and cocktails. For Valentine’s 2025, Auro presents the “heart smash”, a 64-percent dark chocolate heart shell that, when broken, reveals mini 55-percent dark chocolate caramel and hazelnut heart cookies within.

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When asked what motivates him to create, Yu Hsuan Cheng singles out his “love for taste”, sharing with Tatler: “I think taste is the most closely related to the human body among the five senses. Nothing is more delicate than this”. Pursuing his passion for rare flavours, he established the boutique chocolate label Yu Chocolatier, which combines his love for French chocolate with the unique flavours of Taiwan. The Taipei patisserie is home to an array of treats like dark chocolate bonbons, jasmine calamansi mooncakes, whisky chocolate cakes and brandy chocolate tarts.

For Valentine’s 2025, Yu Chocolatier offers an eight-piece box set of chocolate bonbons, featuring its signature dark ganache plus two special ganaches, the aromatically perfumed Violet Cassis and Bergamote Oolong. Up next: The chocolatier dreams of sharing his creations with the rest of the world, eyeing a shop in Paris in the future. “I like making chocolate,” he said. “Is it possible for me to put the flavours and culture of Taiwan into chocolate, and then one day have the opportunity to show it to the world?”

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Harnessing her love for chocolate, Louise Mabulo launched The Cacao Project (TCP), the social enterprise dedicated to empowering farmers with sustainable agriculture practices, all rooted in the resilience of the cacao tree. The long-term crop, which produces yields in a short amount of time, not only improves farmers’ livelihoods but also helps create a more sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural ecosystem.

“We’re helping farmers plant the seeds in the ground and plan their farms from the beginning. We get to watch the trees grow, we get to work with the farmers, and build and cultivate that community alongside the agroforests that we’re building,” said the chocolatier in Gen.T’s Crazy Smart Asia podcast.

TCP has trained over 200 farmers, planted more than 150,000 trees and restored over 100 hectares of land through its various initiatives. For her work, Mabulo received the SDG Vanguard Award at the UN Foundation’s Global Leadership Award in November 2024. Beyond its social and environmental impact, TCP supports local chocolate production, helping small-hold farmers bring their products, like chocolate bars, cacao bites and cacao butter, to the market.

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Through his brands Chocolate Concierge and Culture Cacao, founder Ong Ning-Geng is redefining Malaysian single-origin chocolate, positioning it alongside the world’s finest. The cacao beans used to create Chocolate Concierge’s single-origin bars and bonbons can be traced to the day and location of their harvest. The company sources beans from small-batch producers in places like Chemor, where cocoa beans exhibit fruity and toffee profiles, and Batang Kali, where harvests express spice. Ong also works closely with local communities to integrate sustainable farming methods into cacao production.

The former app developer was driven by his fascination with fermentation (comparing the process to coding in an interview with Tatler), eventually focusing on the transformation of cacao into chocolate. His high-quality tree-to-bar chocolates have ended up on the menus of top restaurants in Kuala Lumpur such as DC Restaurant, Skillet@163 and Modern Madness. To consider for Valentine’s 2025, Chocolate Concierge’s collaboration with Yellow Fin Horse. Their one-night-only menu highlights the deep and complex flavours of cacao.

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John Chuang Tiong Choon is behind Delfi Limited, one of the world’s leading chocolate manufacturers. The company’s beginnings can be traced to the 1950s, when the Chuang family founded a chocolate manufacturer in Indonesia. In 1984, Chuang founded Petra Foods, establishing a cocoa processing plant in the Philippines and acquiring facilities in Europe, Mexico and Brazil. It also became Asia’s largest cocoa-bean grinder and the fourth largest globally, supplying major brands like Cadbury and Nestlé.

In 2013, Petra Foods sold its cocoa ingredients division to Barry Callebaut, before rebranding into Delfi Limited in 2016 and shifting focus to branded consumer products. Today, Delfi boasts a diverse portfolio of over 400 confectionery products, including its own line, as well as iconic brands like Indonesia’s SilverQueen and the Philippines’ beloved Goya and KnickKnacks. Delfi further reinforced its leadership in the chocolate industry, acquiring the regional rights to the Van Houten brand. Its sweet confections are sold across Asia, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and more.

Read John Chuang Tiong Choon’s full profile on Asia’s Most Influential

Tatler Asia’s Most Influential is the definitive list of people shaping our world today. Asia’s Most Influential brings together the region’s most innovative changemakers, industry titans and thought leaders who are driving positive impact in Asia and beyond. View the full list here.

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