by Eli Mandel

The road to World of Chantilly is paved with, well, asphalt. Its building stands on a non-descript street in a non-descript part of Flatbush, Brooklyn. But inside the modest brick edifice are made some of the finest kosher cakes in America, with the entire facility certified OK Parve.

Perhaps this low-key appearance is rooted in World of Chantilly’s beginnings, in the firestorm that was civil war-torn Lebanon in the late seventies and early eighties. At the time, the Faks family operated one of the most successful candy and chocolate companies in the Middle East.

The environment in Beirut was becoming increasingly not conducive for Jews. When a partner of the Faks family was gunned down, they saw the handwriting on the wall and began to phase out their Lebanese operations. Meanwhile, one member of the family was acquiring critical baking experience at a Lebanese bakery, experience that would prove invaluable later on.

The Faks family subsequently arrived in the U.S. Daniel, Freddie, Albert, their sister Rita, and their mother came armed with their collective experience in confectionery manufacturing. After pursuing an education for several years, they opened World of Chantilly as a retail bakery outlet in Brooklyn. (Their father, a mainstay of the family business in Lebanon, had passed away.)

Reports about this new company with the spectacular desserts began to spread among caterers, and this word-of-mouth advertising led to increased wholesale orders, forcing the company to rethink its business model.

The Fakses decided to focus more on their wholesale operations, whose scale they could not accommodate from their tiny location. And so they moved to a 20,000 square-foot facility in East Flatbush. (Yes, the building is modest in appearance, but it is big.)

Today World of Chantilly is the largest supplier of kosher desserts to caterers in the U.S. The bakery ships around the country and even to foreign destinations.

World of Chantilly has a remarkable variety of cakes and confections from which to choose. These range from full-size cakes to miniatures and gourmet chocolate. There’s everything from Black Coral, a decadent chocolate feast topped by chocolate ruffles, to Cappuccino Cake to Caramel Cake. There are various fruit pies, mini-cakes, and pastries. And World of Chantilly has not abandoned chocolate, which made it famous in Lebanon. The company continues to make gourmet chocolates and other confections.

Danny Faks is a very unassuming young man, not yet out of his twenties. His calm demeanor echoes World of Chantilly’s quiet air.

Danny notes that the family nurtured its Jewish roots in Lebanon. The boys were able to attend a yeshivah there, but it closed when Danny was about seven. Today the Fakses are proud members of a Lebanese Sephardic congregation in Brooklyn. The bakery has not limited itself to the kosher market, says Danny. “We have a lot of non-kosher customers. In fact, we ship to places where there probably aren’t any Jews!” Quality does not know religious boundaries.

The entire World of Chantilly facility is certified kosher and parve by the OK Labs. The universal acceptance guaranteed by the OK symbol has given the bakery entry to kosher facilities that demand an elite hechsher. Danny says, “We have a good relationship with the OK. We don’t change our suppliers very often. Once a product has been accepted by the OK, we feel comfortable staying with it.” This consistency eliminates the kashrus challenges that arise when a company constantly switches suppliers. It also assures that World of Chantilly’s products will be uniformly good.

It is notable that World of Chantilly has remained exclusively parve. Danny Faks realizes that this is unique. “Usually cakes are made dairy. We learned here that people wanted parve, and so we had to change some things.” Danny believes that World of Chantilly may one day start a dairy division, but adds that it would probably have to be set up in an entirely separate facility.

While today World of Chantilly focuses more on the wholesale end of things, the bakery continues to service individual customers as well. Walk-in shoppers are welcome, and phone orders are accepted as well. World of Chantilly will deliver to homes in Brooklyn for free.

World of Chantilly is on the Internet at www.chantilly.com. If you want to see how their cakes look, the web site is a good place to get information. The phone number is 718-859-1110.

Eli Mandel is a free-lance writer living in New York.