IF YOUR PASSION FOR QUALITY chocolate verges on the obsessive, like ours, you will already know all about the small Montreal chocolate maker Qantu. At least you should, for Qantu has of late been cleaning up at international awards of consequence. For example, on July 25, at a swanky ceremony at Claridge’s in Mayfair, London, the industry-standard Academy of Chocolate awarded Qantu no fewer than seven medals, five of them golds. In 2017, it won four medals at the same event— one of them for best international newcomer. That’s right: this little chocolate company that already exports to Brussels, Paris and London is only two years old. It was founded in 2016 by Quebecker Maxime Simard and his Peruvian girlfriend, Elfi Maldonado, whom he met while visiting Machu Pichu. They now deal exclusively with Peruvian cacao producers of different regions (Amazon, Junin, Ayacucho, etc.). All the cacao beans are heritage varieties. They are imported fermented and dried, but raw—and then are roasted, shelled, conched and tempered at the Qantu atelier on Notre-Dame East in Montreal. Nine different tasting bars are available—at 60%, 70% and 100% cacao. And we recommend them all.

— MARIE-CLAUDE LORTIE