How a family recipe grew into an Eastern Kentucky bean-to-bar chocolate café and inn
Growing up, Dustin Cornett’s grandmother made chocolate candies for Christmas.
He didn’t remember its taste or how she made them, only that his mom would hide the box of candies from his dad.
Years later, Cornett stumbled across the family recipes while trying to figure out what he wanted to do next with his life. It took some time — and a teaching stint in Japan — but he found the answer opening the Chocolat Inn & Café, a highly rated Beattyville bed and breakfast offering “luxury in a rural area” and “mouthwatering sweets”.
Cornett returned to his Eastern Kentucky hometown of Beattyville in 2014 after living in Japan for about six years. He had moved there to teach English and find himself. He traveled and met his wife Mai but teaching English was not a job he could sustain long term.
The couple decided to move back to the U.S. Mai is from Osaka, the second biggest city in Japan. Dustin assumed living in Lee County would be a culture shock for Mai, but she fell in love with the Eastern Kentucky community because of its the warm natured people and how peaceful it was.
While staying at his brother’s place, Dustin started to try making the chocolate candy recipes. His grandmother Rosemary was suffering from dementia, but as she repeated stories, she would reveal a new detail. One was the missing piece to the recipe.
“I thought, I don’t want to let this tradition die,” Dustin said.
Dustin changed one part of his grandmother’s candy recipe: the chocolate itself. Rosemary had Hershey send her 10-pound chocolate bars. Through a lot of trial and error, Dustin made bean-to-bar chocolates. He is one of two in the state, Whelpdale Chocolates in Louisville is the other.
“Making chocolate from the bean is my passion,” Dustin said.
The 2014 Woolly Worm Festival was approaching, and Dustin figured it would be a way to try making and selling the chocolates. They were successful. He decided he wanted all in.
“If I failed, I failed. If I was successful, I was successful,” Dustin said. “It’s like you just have to do it.”
The gourmet chocolate company would be named Purple Lady Confections after Dustin’s late mother’s favorite color. The logo had a rose to memorize Rosemary.
“Pursing it in Beattyville was really daunting, because gourmet chocolate is just not going to sell enough for you to survive here because there’s not enough population and economy,” Dustin said.
Dustin and Mai chose to pair a cafe and bakery. Mai had learned how to bake — and English — by watching the Food Network.
A motel building with a house came on the market. The couple was living at a bible camp nearby. It was a perfect fit.
They opened the cafe and inn in 2017 with a new name: Chocolat Inn & Café, a tie to the bakery’s French pastries and the Cornett last name.
The bed and breakfast inn has eight rooms, ranging from romantic suites to adjoining suites for families and friends. All the rooms are city themed, with London, Paris, Osaka, East Berlin and West Berlin (the adjoining rooms), New York City and Mumbai. The rooms have a sitting area, jacuzzi tub, an oversized shower, TV and a workspace.
In the middle of the inn is the cafe. It serves coffee, sipping chocolate, pastries and desserts, donuts, gourmet chocolate candy bars and candies. For guests, Mai provides breakfast.
The COVID pandemic made the business a bit unstable, but the cafe got help from curbside orders.
This past year, the couple entered a chocolate contest in San Francisco, and won a silver and a bronze awards. The chocolates, though, received no notes. Dustin was hoping for feedback. So he took matters into his own hands and on the weekend of Jan. 22, the Inn & Café hosted its first chocolate contest.
Thirty-three chocolate bars were entered, including one from Chile. The contest had a panel of judges, including a chocolate expert, food bloggers, culinary writers, customers, rock climbers and Dustin.
Dustin said in a Facebook post, “it’s a bittersweet ending as I truly want every maker that entered to win,” but he hopes the feedback and experience can be a consolation prize.”
Dustin has other ideas to make chocolate more approachable like a festival and opening up the bean-to-bar process for tours.
“I want to be able to educate people about the craft of chocolate and why it’s important, but also want them to enjoy it,” Dustin said.
What Dustin hopes for the Chocolat Inn & Café is simple.
“If I can provide for my family, and we can be happy doing what we’re doing, I’m satisfied,” he said. “That’s all I need.”
The cafe is currently closed until Feb. 10 to catch up on maintenance and restock on chocolate after the Christmas holiday and ahead of Valentine’s Day, the cafe’s biggest time.
Chocolat Inn & Café
Where: 1165 KY-11 S, Beattyville, Ky.
Cafe hours: 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Thur.-Fri.; 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat.; Sun.-Wed. closed
Inn reservations: chocolat-inn.com
Room rates: Starting at $125 a night
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 6:00 AM.