A Royal Navy chef has become a real-life Willy Wonka after creating a chocolate factory – in his BEDROOM.
Sweet-toothed Nicholas Nittle, 34, makes anything from chocolate lollipops and traditional bon-bons to flavoured shoes and hand bags.
And despite holding down a job as a head chef on HMS Drake, Nicholas is determined to be a world-class chocolatier with his business, Domea Favour.
Father-of-two Nicholas converted a spare room into a mini desert workshop after his family praised his confectionery making skills.
He said: “I’ve always wanted to make sweets and chocolate but it all started when my sister got married a couple of years ago.
“She’d been with her partner forever and they didn’t need anything so I decided to do her some wedding favours.
“I made these little chocolates for her and put them in these little bags as a surprise. After that more and more people started asking me to do stuff.
“It went from chocolates to truffles then all these different shapes.
“They were saying ‘Can you make a shoe? Could you do a handbag? Can you make a teapot?'”
“The next thing I know people are messaging me and ringing me saying could you help me out with this and that. That is where the name came from.”
Nicholas started his business nearly two years ago in his home in Plymouth, Devon.
He first came up with the idea six years ago when he was searching for a wedding present for his sister.
After making her chocolates and seeing them go down so well, he decided to focus all his efforts on the project.
He said that his two daughters, Poppy, 11, and Pebbles, nine, are his biggest motivators.
“I’ve always been around fine dining food and people that are in love with food,” he said.
“Currently, now I am the head chef at the HMS Drake, so I’m cooking for the Royal Navy, international guests, royal visitors and Hollywood stars.
“I have taken that knowledge and put it into what I am doing with the chocolates.
“It does get difficult. Sometimes, people will ask ‘when do you relax?’ but this is my therapy.
“I just lose myself in the chocolate.
“When times do get hard I just look up on the wall and I see my little girls looking down and I think, dig in keep doing it – cause that’s the main reason that I have to keep pushing this.
“Cause of those two smiling faces up there. The dream is to make this my full-time job. I’ve just got to go for it.”
