After moving to Brisbane in 2011 and blitzing a course in patisserie, Nikki Ria fell madly in love with all things sweet and took the plunge to open her own artisan chocolate business. In 2014, the chocolate-obsessed mother-of-two launched Chokola’j (pronounced sho-koh-lah), blending her passion for quality chocolate with her desire to push the boundaries and experiment with exotic ingredients. Currently located at Wandering Cooks in South Brisbane, Chokola’j is best known for its handcrafted chocolate truffles, many of which harbour unexpected flavour combinations, like basil pesto, passionfruit and chilli, raspberry and pink peppercorn, and salted caramel, made with black Cyprus sea salt and Murray River pink salt.

If you can spare a few extra notches on your belt, you’d be silly not to sample the artisan rocky road, chocolate tablettes, and delicate honeycomb made with Tasmanian leatherwood honey, not to mention the drool-worthy array of brownies, cookies and tarts, all whipped up from the finest, locally sourced ingredients. Need a sugar hit? Order your Chokola’j goodies via Facebook, or head to Thank Truck it’s Thursday at Wandering Cooks to visit Nikki and the team.