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Don’t Call These Candy
Oscar Ortega’s chocolate confections are among the best in the world.
// By Helen Olsson
The glass cases at Atelier Ortega and CocoLove are filled with artisan desserts, from decadent cakes to a rainbow of bonbons. Master chocolatier and gelato maker Oscar Ortega developed many of his recipes by competing in international competitions, starting with the Olympic Culinary Games in 2004. Dozens of his citations, medals, and trophies cover every inch of the walls and shelves at Atelier Ortega. There’s the mixing bowl-shaped trophy for 2011 Top Ten Pastry Chef in America and the Finalist trophy from the World Chocolate Masters competition held in Paris in 2009 (making him the world’s first “Chocolate Master” to hail from Mexico). But the one Ortega is most proud of is the “Best Praline in the World” trophy from the World Pastry Team Championships in Milan in 2015. “Every podium is a memory, and I have scars from each one,” Ortega says. But competitions have elevated his game. “When I develop recipes for competitions, I think about flavors, textures, and how the taste evolves in your mouth,” he says.
Ortega started out in broadcasting with aspirations of working as a journalist for the BBC, but when a radio program he started was taken over by a corporation, he soured on the industry. He had learned to cook traditional Italian dishes at home (his mom was Italian), so he pivoted to the culinary arts. In 1997, while enrolled at Milan’s Cast Alimenti culinary school, he had the opportunity to observe a pastry team practicing for competition. “I saw the perfection in everything they did with confections. And when I tasted them, I was blown away,” he says. “I decided I wanted to become one of the best pastry chefs in the business. Cooking savory foods is easy. Confections are harder, and I prefer the hard way.”
In the early 2000s, Ortega’s first wife (and mom to son Sebastian) was moving to Jackson for a job. “It had to be a woman to make me move from one side of the world to here,” says Ortega, who had always lived in cities like London, Paris, and Brussels. When he arrived in Jackson Hole in the dead of winter, he thought it was paradise.
Today, Ortega runs his Jackson shops with Ximena Ortega Ruiz, a pastry chef from Costa Rica who he married in 2022. While Ortega spearheads the chocolates program, she focuses on pastries. Ortega Ruiz serves as chef de cuisine, overseeing the pastry cooks and crafting everything from petite gateaux to viennoiserie, and she brought in coffee beans from her family’s coffee plantation for the atelier’s lattes. “She has become my biggest source of inspiration,” he says.
While the nuances between Ortega’s chocolate confections are lost on most, they fall into distinct categories: Bonbons have a molded outer shell, often brightly colored, and a soft chocolate ganache filling. Praline is a general term for chocolate confections with fillings, ranging from ganache to the accented praliné (a blend of roasted nuts and caramelized sugar). Usually round in shape, truffles are made of a creamy ganache rolled in cocoa powder. Whatever you do, don’t call them candies. “That is an offense,” Ortega says. They are all chocolate confections.
Over his career, Ortega has made countless flavors, and today you’ll find 27 on offer. He sat down with us to taste a half dozen of his favorite chocolate confections—including two of the longest-standing confections in the collection, the Mexican and Safron & Vanilla—running us through a pretty sweet (and savored slowly) taste journey. “In America, there is this cult of immediate satisfaction that I don’t understand,” he says. “The food you eat doesn’t have to be all foie gras and caviar, but we should celebrate every single bite.” $2.95 per piece, $30 for a box of 12; 115 W. Broadway Ave. (Cocolove) and 150 Scott Ln. (Atlier Ortega); 307/734-6400, atelierortega.squarespace.com
One nibble of the Saffron & Vanilla and the essence of Iranian saffron hits your taste buds, followed by 64 percent single-origin dark chocolate couverture and a hint of pure Mexican vanilla bean. Decorated with pink swirls and purple butterflies on top, it’s also a handsome bite. “I think it’s really joyful,” says Ortega, who presented the confection at the World Chocolate Masters competition in 2009.
A nod to Ortega’s Mexico City roots, the Mexican praline’s cocoa beans are processed in the Mexican style—the beans are harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, peeled, and then processed with sugar—resulting in an intense chocolate flavor. The top of this perennial favorite is decorated with imagery of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god who gave the cacao tree to the Aztecs.
Inside the square-shaped Hazelnut Praline & Espresso confection, Ortega uses caramelized hazelnuts and sugar to create a milk chocolate praliné that’s layered with a ganache of 75 percent dark chocolate and espresso. “There’s a hint of nutmeg first, then you taste the sweetness of the hazelnut, then espresso, then chocolate,” says Ortega. “It’s an evolution.”
Tahitian vanilla beans, fresh lime juice, and African cocoa beans collide in the inventive Vanilla & Lime bonbon. “People say citrus and chocolate don’t go together,” he says. “Of course, they do!” Inside the green confection, molded into an oval shape, the ganache is delightfully soft to align with the idea of lime juice. Less sweet than others, it’s a bite capable of spiking up the palate. Ortega submitted the confection to the World Pastry Team Championships in Milan in 2015—and won. Look for the “Best Praline the World” trophy on display in Atelier Ortega.
Ortega developed his Banana & Walnut praline—in addition to the Vanilla & Lime bonbon—for the 2015 World Pastry Team Championships. He told his team, “We’ve got to do something spectacular.” The banana-walnut combo seems straightforward, but its flavor profile is complex. The first taste, sweet caramelized banana, gives way to tangy notes of walnut praliné, finishing with chocolate ganache.
The idea for his Pistachio & Strawberry combo came from an assistant chocolatier. The acidic taste of strawberry opens the palate, making way for the sweetness of the pistachio praline. A bit of dehydrated beet adds a rich red color. Finally, this rotund little bonbon is decorated with a bright swirl of green and red over its hard shell exterior.JH