Feature: the delicate, delicious passion for Belgian chocolates.

• Author: Verel, Patrick

Across the Sound, a chocolatier is recreating delicacies from across the pond

The gently rolling, secluded hills of Litchfield County, Connecticut have long attracted artisans looking for inspiration among the quaint covered bridges, meandering stone walls and leafy trees. Pierre and Susan Gilissen brought their own brand of art to the village of Kent in 2000. Their medium is chocolate, and their finished works are the most heavenly desserts this side of the Atlantic.

To visit Belgique Patisserie & Chocolatier, the chocolate shop the couple opened in a century-old carriage house that was once chock full of garden tools, is to travel to an outpost of continental grandeur only a half hour away from the fast food outlets of New Milford. On a winter day, the smell of hot chocolate wafting on the breeze is intoxicating enough to draw a visitor off the street, across the gravel parking lot, past the circa 1898 clapboard Queen Anne style house where an accompanying restaurant is located, and through the double doors of the carriage house.

Inside, safely ensconced behind glass like fine jewels, are the handmade chocolates that retail for $55 a pound: glossy pieces of Cleopatra pralines with...