Dorian Isenberg took his love affair with cooking and turned it into a business. He explained how he began watching Julia Child's a child, and learned to cook. 

By age 11, Isenberg had moved on from basic meals to full-fledged epicurean creations, such as the Chateaubriand he whipped up for his parents 25th anniversary.

Cooking was always a sideline, even when he was laid off from Fossil, where he was in management, he started refining his skills with chocolate as something to do to keep busy when he wasn't watching the kids. His wife would take the chocolates to work, then people offered to buy them, and he knew his perfectionist palate for great chocolate would allow him to start a business. At first he sold wholesale only, but then his wholesale clients insisted he open a retail store and with their support he opened the J. Dorian Chocolatier storefront at 5312 Belt Line Road.

Featuring large glass windows and a place to sit and nibble, the J. Dorian storefront allows visitors to watch the creation of a wide variety of European-style truffles, chocolate bars and chocolate-covered delicacies. Isenberg samples each batch to make sure it meets the standards he started in his kitchen long ago. Among the best sellers are milk-chocolate covered macadamia nuts, dark chocolate-covered cornflakes, liqueur-flavored chocolates and 72-percent “special dark” ganache squares. A complete product listing can be found on the company’s Web site atwww.jdorian.com.

When not concocting new chocolate goodies, Dorian Isenberg can be found sharing his know how and passion teaching classes as institutions such as Sur La Table and Cake Carousel. Isenberg lives in Dallas with his wife and business partner Jayme and their daughter.