Belgian chocolate has long since ceased to be merely a product. It has become a sign of quality, craftsmanship and luxury — a national speciality transformed into an international language of pleasure.

Chocolate also has a particular capacity: it can make bitterness desirable. It does not remove it, but balances it, smooths it out, turns it into a taste one wants to return to.

Not every bitterness submits to this process quite so innocently.

In Chocolate Leo, the face of Leopold II is cast in Belgian chocolate.

From 1885 to 1908, Leopold was the sovereign ruler of the Congo Free State, where the extraction of rubber and ivory was accompanied by forced labour and extreme violence. More than a century later, his image returns in one of the most desirable materials associated with Belgium.

Distance has done subtler work. The image remains recognisable. Its temperature changes.

Time does not always lead to forgetting. Sometimes it leaves the image in place and changes its taste.

Belgian sweetness retains its prestige, Leopold his name, history its facts.

Nothing has to be erased. Contradiction does not spoil the product.

The chocolate still melts in the mouth.

What remains irreconcilable remains edible.