BonBonBar

Our Story

I love shopping at the Farmers Market for produce, and making fresh candy from fresh ingredients. You can taste the quality in every bite. -Nina, Founder and Chief Chocolatier of BonBonBar

My name is Nina Wanat, and I am the founder and chief chocolatier of BonBonBar LLC.

I was born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey, and never once in my early years did I have an interest in cooking or baking -- only in eating well occasionally. After graduating from Northwestern University, I started my career as a daytime assistant and nighttime screenwriter in Hollywood. After a few years, my interest in filmmaking waned, and I wanted to immerse myself in a new field that would be full of meaningful challenges. Naturally, I went to law school.

My school was in the town of Davis in northern California, and I found that I wasn't just attending law school -- I was also attending the Davis Farmers Market. A lot. I began to bake and to cook, and to bribe myself: if I read a case, I could bake a cake... If I wrote a brief, I could ice the cake... If I started another case, I could eat a piece while reading it.

And so it went until I realized that half of those actions were clearly elective.

I moved 45 minutes west so that I could learn more through the Baking & Pastry Certificate Program at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in the Napa Valley. There, I experienced the thrill of putting together all kinds of desserts that others were just as thrilled to eat. I also started a blog, called Sweet Napa, to share and to remember all that I was learning -- everything from preventing exploding pies to shaping chocolate dolphins.

After eating and analyzing so much fantastic handmade food, I found that my old favorite snacks somehow didn't taste the same and were full of ingredients that I would never use in my recipes. Candy bars caught my attention because they are made of such wonderful components -- like caramel, cookies, nougat, and marshmallows -- that could be flavored in endless ways using wholesome ingredients. I began to experiment in my spare time with combinations that sounded good to me.

I moved back to Los Angeles, and again found that I had daytime jobs and a nighttime project. But this time, I've become only more passionate -- about delicious food, quality ingredients, sustaining the environment, and sharing what I've learned.

I launched BonBonBar with the belief that others would also enjoy these unique confections, and we are now continuing to make candy by hand in Berkeley, CA