By: Catherine Gonzaga, Volunteer
For Isabella Valencia, owner of San Diego-based Dallmann Confections, making chocolate is a family affair. Her scrumptious chocolates are full of palate pleasing pairings that are the result of age-old family recipes, the use of fine, fresh ingredients, and her own innovative flavor infusions.
Isabella opened Dallmann Confections in San Diego in 2006, but her family has been satisfying sugar cravings across the world since 1954. Though there have been pastry chefs and chocolatiers in her family for many generations, the first of her family to open up their own shop was her grandfather, Guenther Dallmann. In 1954, Guenther opened a small pastry shop in St. Gilgen, Austria which quickly became famous for its delicate, handmade pastries. Due to space limitations, Guenther would create only three different pastries each day. Nevertheless, Isabella fondly recalls looking through photo albums and seeing pictures of his shop packed full of people from all over the world. In fact, her grandfather proudly displayed an autographed picture from Clark Gable on his walls – evidence of how word of his fine pastries had spread far and wide. That small shop has since closed and has been replaced by a much larger shop that is run by her parents.
Despite being raised in a pastry shop, Isabella did not grow up with dreams of carrying on the family business. Because she is friendly and clever, her parents asked her to help run the front of the shop in Austria, and she never really got her hands dirty in the kitchen much. She then came to Southern California as a student of Hotel and Restaurant Management. However, after a few years in the industry managing a gourmet store in Downtown San Diego, Isabella decided she wanted a career change.
