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<\/a>When Isabella Knack (n\u00e9e Dallmann) was growing up in the town of St. Gilgen, Austria, the idea of spending her life making chocolates and pastries didn\u2019t seem so sweet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up in a pastry family in a touristy area,\u201d said Knack, who goes by \u2018Bella.\u2019 \u201cMy parents believed business came first, then family. I felt at the time that I suffered because I grew up with nannies.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was only after she moved to San Diego that she found it was her true passion. Now she runs Dallmann Fine Chocolates, a gourmet chocolate shop with two locations, including The Headquarters at Seaport District, a new Downtown retail destination that opened in November.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a path she never expected to take.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother was the one who was going take over the business,\u201d Knack said, laughing. \u201cI studied to go into the restaurant and hotel business.\u201d<\/p>\n
While studying in Austria, she met a manager from the Westgate Hotel in Downtown San Diego who was also from Austria and liked to hire staff from his home country.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole college wanted to come to San Diego, but I was lucky,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Knack, now 33, spent 18 months working at the front desk of the Westgate, but was getting bored. So she jumped at the opportunity to manage the hotel\u2019s gourmet food store.<\/p>\n One day, an experience happened that changed her life.<\/p>\n A person from the Mainly Mozart festival called and asked about the Mozartkugel, an Austrian specialty named after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.<\/p>\n It just happened to be a specialty of her family. Mozartkugel is described as \u201c[a blend of] hazelnut nougat and pistachio marzipan in the center encoded with bittersweet Swiss couverture.\u201d Couverture contains a higher percentage of cocoa butter than traditional chocolates.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was an amazing opportunity, so I quit my job, went back home and got a crash course in making chocolate,\u201d she said. \u201cThen I started selling them to Mainly Mozart.\u201d<\/p>\n Knack said the experience of actually working with chocolate was revelatory for her.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce I could play with the chocolate, I loved it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt connected me with my father.\u201d<\/p>\n But the dream of starting her own business is something she said could only have happened in America.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I am doing is the American dream,\u201d she said. \u201cYou get an idea and start a dream. It\u2019s not that easy to do in Austria where people are bound by tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s true. While her father still makes the same product his father made in Austria \u201cbecause that\u2019s what people want\u201d, Knack said San Diegans are more open to experimentation.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>