Styria eat an average of ten kilograms of chocolate per year. But two of them – Gerhard Petzl from Kalsdorf and Jaimy Reisinger from Gleisdorf – turn the sweet treat into real works of art.
Life without chocolate is possible, but meaningless. For Gerhard Petzl from Kalsdorf, chocolate has become the elixir of life. Many gold medals and awards are paving the way, which has amazed everyone from Sydney to New York.
Entire rooms made of chocolate
“Every job is a challenge,” says the country’s once-youngest master pastry chef at age 21. He wanted to get more out of himself and the raw material chocolate, which is why the Styrian creates unique sculptures. In Hong Kong he created a royal banquet and in Germany a Biedermeier-style room complete with a fireplace and sofa.
The chocolatier of the year sees himself as a “classic craftsman, comparable to a roofer”. He is the architect of his dreams. In his basement laboratory, the 48-year-old studies down to the smallest molecules. And the tinkerer, who also works as a product developer for a well-known company, has been melting his delicately bitter art on naked bodies lately. “It’s about the spontaneity of the execution on the model,” says the chocolate sculptor. “But for me as an artist there is no room for eroticism.”
The fact that this art is not meant for eternity may also make you sad. In the heat of battle, the works of the Kalsdorfer melted away. “My heart is bleeding, but that’s the way things are.”
Young talent in the starting blocks
Jaimy Reisinger from Gleisdorf is attracted to where the chocolate artist Gerhard Petzl is now. The award-winning pastry chef wants to go to the World Chocolat Masters – the pinnacle of all professional chocolatiers. The 22-year-old trained as a pastry chef on the second track and received the best tools to climb to the chocolate Olympian at the elite school “Le Cordon Bleu” in London.
The talent, chosen by Falstaff magazine, is currently unfolding her intuition at the Graz gourmet restaurant Artis. “Any pastry chef would decapitate me, because I hardly work with recipes,” says the Styrian, who is currently hotly courted by the chocolate world. “In the coming year, I want to go out into the world to learn even more,” she says, emphasizing success.
Gerhard Petzl also has a big dream. “I want to be in the record book. This world record attempt is about something gigantic made from ten tons of chocolate,” he says, giving a little taste of future highlights.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
