Halfway through the first day of the North American competition of the World Chocolate Masters – even as the top chocolatiers from across Canada and the United States worked, furiously, to finish their toffees and caramel and ganache – much of the attention was focused, instead, on who wasn’t in the room.
Audience members and fellow contestants asked the question in whispers, and raised eyebrows: “Where’s Jeremy?” they asked. “Is Jeremy here yet?”
The Jeremy in question was Jeremy Monsel, a 30-year-old Montreal wunderkind chocolatier, a protégée to Christophe Morel – one of Canada’s most celebrated chocolatiers – and the clear favourite entering this year’s competition.
This was to be Mr. Monsel’s second chance at competing for the title. After a colossal upset in 2021, this competition set the stage for a comeback.
“Jeremy is the one to beat,” said Sergio Shidomi, a Toronto-based pastry chef and instructor who attended this year as a coach to two other contestants, Joel Latiff and Francis Nguyen. Mr. Shidomi should know: He was coach to Nishant Amin, the chef who beat Mr. Monsel in 2021.
Mr. Shidomi pointed at the Chocolate Academy of Montreal’s kitchen around him, where the competition was held last month. “This is his redemption.”
The North American World Chocolate Masters competition, which takes place every three years, not only awards its winner bragging rights as the most skilled chocolatier on the continent, but also the chance to represent Canada and the U.S. in the World Chocolate Masters final in Belgium in 2026.
What the World Cup is to soccer, the World Chocolate Masters is to dessert. It is, for the sugar-obsessed, like the Olympics, the Oscars and the Super Bowl, combined – maybe bigger. It’s where chocolatiers produce absurdly elaborate confections – Pollock-splattered bonbons, impossibly opulent cakes, layers and layers of perfectly formed sponge and mousse, and soaring chocolate sculptures.
Pastry chef Joel Latiff, above, prepares his entry for the pastry play assignment. He calls the pastry 'Summer journey.'Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
The French pastry chef and lead World Chocolate Masters juror Amaury Guichon, for instance, is best known for sculpting in 2019 a 1.8-metre-tall Empire State Building – complete with a hulking King Kong – out of 61 kilograms of chocolate. (Aware of the concerns around chocolate sustainability, Barry Callebaut, the chocolate company and competition sponsor, is careful to point out that the sculptures are all made out of expired product.)
It’s a competition where chefs train for months, even years – sacrificing time with friends and family in the obsessive pursuit of perfection. Mr. Latiff has, for the past several months, worked “36-hour days” perfecting, among other things, his recipe for dark chocolate pine nut crunch with smoked ganache. Matt LoCurto, a pastry chef from West Virginia, drove 16 hours with bags and bags of milk chocolate in tow to get to Montreal. And Charlotte Wang has been on unpaid leave for the past two months from her job at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Toronto to practise.
In their training, the chefs have developed skills and techniques so niche and specific to this competition that they would seem absurd to outsiders – there isn’t, after all, much of a market for life-size chocolate sculptures. Still, since the competition’s beginning in 2005, chocolatiers have flocked to participate.
“It’s about being the best,” Mr. Shidomi said. He’s competed several times himself. He was the Brazil winner in 2013 (he has dual Canadian-Brazilian citizenship), and placed 14th in the world finals.
“If you go through this competition, and you perform well, everyone will know who you are,” he said. “This is the Olympics.”
Five of the competitors were scheduled to compete on the first day, the remaining four on the second day. Still, by the middle of the first day, all of the competitors – save for Mr. Monsel – had come to cheer each other on – and assess the competition. The room smelled of burnt sugar, creamy chocolate and exhaustion.
The favourite of the morning so far had been Judith Lamontagne, a chocolatier from Saint-Sauveur, Que.
“Clean, just really, really clean,” Mr. Shidomi said. Her bonbons were painted green and yellow, like perfect McIntosh apples, filled with pecan praline and spiced fruit.
Ruchit Harneja, a pastry chef and competitor from Houston, examined the exterior of Ms. Lamontagne’s bonbons. The way you judge a bonbon, he said, is by the shell. And Ms. Lamontagne’s shell was thin and crisp, with a satisfying snap. “It’s outstanding,” he said.
Judith Lamontagne assembles the pieces of her chocolate sculpture on the first day of the competition.Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste/The Globe and Mail
Others were less successful. Mr. Harneja pointed to a dessert made by his friend and fellow competitor from Texas, Sumant Sharma. It was chocolate spiced with fresh turmeric and maca, sculpted into a water gun like the type used for Holi, the Indian holiday.
“The concept is good,” Mr. Harneja said. “But the execution could have been done more neatly.” There were fingerprints and edges that were bumpy instead of smooth.
Not long after, a small disaster. The competitors were working on their showpiece sculptures, and much of the attention was focused on Mr. LoCurto, who had sculpted a football-sized cat out of chocolate (modelled after his own cat, Brûlée, as in crème brûlée). Mr. LoCurto was trying, unsuccessfully, to secure the cat to the top of a thin scratching post.
“The pole is too thin,” Mr. Shidomi said. “It’s not going to hold the weight.”
“He’s making me nervous,” said Joshua Cain, a burly, bearded competitor from Florida.
Jeremy Monsel’s chocolate sculpture showpiece was inspired by 'Mother Nature' emerging from her cocoon.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
As soon as he said this, the cat toppled over. Mr. Cain jumped back, letting out a long gasp into his palm.
Mr. LoCurto looked devastated. From across the room, his wife, Juanita Garcia, watched stone-faced.
“He’s trying to make it work,” she said. “He’s nervous, but a big part of this competition is making it work.”
By the end of the day – after the first slate of competitors had wrapped up, and long after he’d been expected to arrive in preparation for his own competition the next day – Mr. Monsel still hadn’t appeared.
Theories abounded as to why.
Maybe he was backing out, one audience member speculated. Another wondered if he was trying to psych the others out.
“He’s hiding,” Mr. Shidomi said. “He’s just going to come out and” – he flashed his palms, as if to say, “Bam!”
“Stop worrying about Jeremy,” Mr. Cain chided the others. “Worry about your own stuff.”
Finally, just before 6 p.m., Mr. Monsel arrived. He had close-cropped hair – shaved on the sides with a hint of fauxhawk on top, and tattoos on his neck and creeping out of his shirtsleeves.
He said, through a French interpreter, that he stayed away in order to remain focused. He was surprised and flattered to hear he’d been the subject of so much speculation.
“Everyone here was preselected, so everyone here has a chance,” he said. “But I’m very flattered.”
He said he didn’t have bitter feelings about the 2021 competition. “Whatever happened in the past, happened.”
He learned from that experience. And he’s spent the past three years training even harder. Now, he said, he’d arrived “more fully prepared. Strong in my head.”
In line with the theme 'play,' Ruchit Harneja’s chocolate sculpture showpiece features rows of colourful chocolate balloons.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
The second day of competition was under way, and it was immediately clear that Mr. Monsel was everybody’s focus. The judges, who have free range in the kitchen, crowded around to watch him. Frequently, they held up their phones to record his work.
Throughout it all, Mr. Monsel remained laser-focused. He kept his workstation sparse and meticulously organized. Anything he wasn’t using stayed on the rack to his side. Everything was shrink-wrapped or packed in clear, labelled plastic containers. Even a whole lime was shrink-wrapped and labelled.
He cleaned as he worked, constantly. He poured warmed milk into a carton of chocolate pieces, then immediately wiped the drops that speckled the counter. He zested a lime, then quickly worked to wipe away any stray green shavings.
And despite the diversions – even as an employee came out with U.S. and Canada flags for audience members (this was the first year the Canadian and U.S. finalists were combined into one regional selection) and a few spectators tried, unsuccessfully, to start a chant of “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!” – Mr. Monsel’s work remained his singular focus.
By then, his first dessert had revealed itself: layers of chocolate sponge cake, perfect beads of frosting and, on top, a delicate monarch butterfly, cut from paper-thin layers of white, orange and dark chocolate.
“So much skill,” Mr. Shidomi said. “So much detail.”
He said Mr. Monsel was “amazing” in 2021. His guess is that the loss came down to Mr. Monsel’s presentation in front of the judges – that perhaps he’d fallen down in explaining his concept or theme to the jury.
But since then, he said, Mr. Monsel appeared to have undergone a transformation.
Cynthia Bendaña, a colleague of Mr. Monsel’s who was there to cheer him on, said she’s seen it for herself.
She believed the 2021 experience had humbled him. And that, in turn, had made him a better chocolatier.
“He’s transformed himself not only technically,” she said, “but also as a human, with a heart.”
His work across the day reflected this. All of his desserts – from his chrysalis-shaped bonbons, filled with lime and salted praline, to his butterfly-themed sculpture and butterfly-shaped mango, banana and passionfruit cake – expressed the theme of transformation.
At the end of the day, the jurors lined up outside to proclaim the winners. The head juror, Yvan Chevalier, thanked all of the contestants for their work.
Jeremy Monsel is named the winner of the competition. Monsel will go on to represent North America at the World Chocolate Masters 2025 world finals.Evan Buhler/The Globe and Mail
And then, he announced the winners. It was a Canadian sweep. Third place went to Ms. Wang. Second place to Ms. Lamontagne. And first prize to Mr. Monsel.
Mr. Monsel jumped to his feet. From beside him, someone popped a confetti canon. Gold stars rained down as he stood, rubbing his head. He hugged every one of his competitors, looking thrilled – maybe also relieved.
He thanked his family and then his employer, Mr. Morel, for their support.
And in that moment, Mr. Monsel transformed, again. Now, he was a champion.
“When my name came out, I had a feeling of liberation,” he said afterward. “Finally, my time had come.”