By HILARY POTKEWITZ
When aspiring chocolatier Jacques Torres opened his small kitchen in Brooklyn's Dumbo in 2000, he was lauded as a bold pioneer. Today, a growing number of his peers are following in Mr. Torres' path. To date, at least a half-dozen small-batch chocolate makers have set up their own roasting, molding or processing operations in a stretch of western Brooklyn extending from Williamsburg down to Sunset Park.
To Mr. Torres, 55, the new wave of choco-preneurs hitting the borough makes perfect sense. He noted that there's still plenty of inexpensive industrial space—including the 40,000-square-foot site in the Brooklyn Army Terminal where he opened his newest kitchen in 2013. But Kings County's culture is just as important. "Brooklyn is the place where things are being made," he said. "We're more artisanal than Manhattan or Queens."
Already there is a big enough batch of chocolatiers out there for different philosophies to emerge, making for a bittersweet competition...