Nicole Patel

Nicole Patel, a renowned chocolatier and proprietor of Delysia Chocolatier, has been named as 2025’s Best Chocolatier in the Americas with the highest honor, Six Star Award: Grand Master Chocolatier, an impressive designation she has received a total of twelve times. Her most recent accolades comprise over 750 awards in total, among which are 103 gold medals and 231 silver medals. Notably, she has demonstrated unmatched mastery in Truffle Artistry, Spicy Chocolate, Drinking (Hot) Chocolate, Ruby Chocolate, and White Chocolate competition categories.
Her journey began in 2006 when she made a batch of homemade chocolate truffles as last-minute holiday gifts while pregnant with her first son. Friends and family were delighted by her creations, and Nicole continued to make chocolate treats to relieve stress from her corporate engineering job. In 2008, a serendipitous trip to the Texas Wine Country led Nicole to become the first person in Texas to create chocolate truffles using local wines. Thanks to her dedication and self taught skills, Delysia Chocolatier quickly rose to become one of the Best Chocolatiers in the Americas, as recognized by the International Chocolate Salon and Taste TV.
Nicole is a proud graduate of Texas A&M University, where she earned both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Engineering degree in Industrial Engineering, specializing in quality control, statistics, and process efficiency. After graduation, she worked for a Fortune 100 technology company in Austin, Texas, as an expert in supply chain and business process improvement. Nicole continued to advance her career and received her Six Sigma Master Black Belt certification. As Director of Quality and head of the corporate Six Sigma program at a privately held technology company in Austin, Nicole led initiatives spanning program development, employee training, quality control, and customer satisfaction until the summer of 2015.
Today, Nicole lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband Rahul and their two sons, Sébastien and Colin.