What touches your skin, and what you put in your body. These are things you reach for every single day — which is exactly why it matters what they’re made of, and how.
Choose your ingredients carefully. Don’t rush the work. Never compromise on quality. That’s how b.glen thinks about making things, and here in Southern California we met someone who thinks about it the same way.
Aleksandra Hoshi is a Ukrainian-born chocolatier. She runs Hoshi Chocolat, where she puts French technique together with Japanese ingredients she came to know through her personal life with her Japanese American husband.
We spent an afternoon in the kitchen where she makes her chocolate, and talked about the unlikely road that got her there, her curiosity about Japanese ingredients, what she refuses to compromise on, and how she finds any time at all for herself between work and a small child.
borshch is a pot of vegetables that cooks down for an hour and comes out dark red. Here’s how Aleksandra makes it at home, and what’s good for your skin.
01 Japan came before the chocolate
“I wanted to cook for my husband, and my mother-in-law started teaching me Japanese food.”
“I wanted to cook for my husband, and my mother-in-law started teaching me Japanese food.”
Aleksandra grew up in Ukraine and started out as a dental technician. Her connection to Japan began when she married a Japanese American man.
Her cooking grew from there. At parties with family and friends she was making not just the meal but the cakes and the desserts, and before long she was deep into pastry.
The turning point came when she met a well-known French chocolatier and pâtissier. Talking with him about how much she loved baking, she offered to make him one of her cakes and asked what he thought of it. He liked what he tasted, and she started studying French pastry under him. An introduction from him led her to a Ukrainian chocolatier, and that’s where she learned chocolate.
Japanese home cooking, then French pastry, then chocolate. The way she works now came out of all three stacked on top of each other.
02 What a single Japanese ingredient can open up
“My style is French-Japanese fusion.”
Matcha, yuzu, shiso, sansho — ingredients any Japanese person would recognize show up again and again in her chocolate.
That thread runs back to her husband’s family too. Through family and through friends she met high-quality Japanese ingredients, and slowly learned how deep they go.
The one she calls genuinely difficult is matcha.
“With matcha you have to work out a new combination for every one you use. It isn’t about the brand — it’s the taste, the grassiness, the earthiness, how those balance. I’ve tried more than twenty matchas, and with at least five of them I made a new flavor.”
“One might go beautifully with passion fruit. Another works with French blueberry and just a touch of yuzu. You can’t reproduce the same recipe with a different matcha. It won’t taste the same.”
She doesn’t treat an ingredient as one flat flavor called “matcha.” She works out what each one actually is. That’s the whole approach.
“When you’re running a business, you always want to bring the cost down. I don’t do that. The moment I pick the cheaper ingredient, I know my product loses its value. I want to keep working like a craftsman. Make small batches, and have people taste it fresh, right after it’s made. That’s what I love.”
03 What’s next?
Matcha, shiso, yuzu, sansho — she’s already brought a lot of Japanese ingredients into chocolate. Asked what she wants to try next, she named amazake.
“Amazake is sweet, a little milky, and it’s fermented. I’ve had it, but I’ve never used it in chocolate. I think it could be interesting.”
One place to find Hoshi Chocolat is Bread, Espresso & in Redondo Beach — the Tokyo bakery café that started in Omotesando and opened its first US location in Southern California in 2025. Hoshi Chocolat runs pop-ups there regularly.
Akano, the store’s manager and a close friend of Aleksandra and her husband, put it this way:
“Every one of her pastries is made from scratch with carefully chosen ingredients, and you can feel the passion and the care in each one. The look, the colors, the taste — there’s real sense and creativity in all of it. I’d love for more people to try it.”
04 Where does the time for yourself come from?
Aleksandra is a chocolatier, and she’s also raising a young child. Mornings go to the family first — everyone ready, kid out the door — and then the kitchen.
In days that full, how do you make any time for yourself?
“Skincare is mostly at night. In the morning I keep it really simple. Sometimes work runs late and I just collapse into bed. But when I can, I do the Asian step-by-step routine. That’s what works for me.”
In the US plenty of people keep it short — wash your face, moisturize, done. In Japan and Korea, it’s common to layer lotion, serum, and cream. The longer version is the one Aleksandra likes. And there’s one thing she never skips in the morning.
“SPF during the day is a must. Winter or summer, sunny or raining, I use it no matter what.”
We gave her a few things from b.glen to try: the products we’d recommend for brightening, along with Damask Rose Oil & Serum and Body Perfection Gel.
The one she reached for on busy days was the Damask Rose Oil & Serum.
“This one is really good. When I’m tired and my skin looks dull, or when I have to head out somewhere, it’s so reliable.”
The Body Perfection Gel surprised her as well.
“I’ve tried products with a similar concept before, but this one surprised me. I’m really impressed.”
And because she likes a routine with steps in it, she went through everything from the cleanser to the final cream, following the instructions one at a time.
Wasn’t that a lot of steps for a busy day?
“There are a lot of steps, sure. But when you want to take care of your skin properly, it’s worth it.”
“It’s worth it.”
05 Borshch, for beautiful skin from the inside
Chocolate and skincare do something similar in the end. They give you a moment to breathe, or lift the day a little. Chocolate made without cutting corners, and skincare you take your time over. Two worlds that look nothing alike, meeting somewhere in the middle.
Between work and her child, Aleksandra is busy — and thriving. We asked where that comes from. She pointed at what she eats.
The dish she recommends for skin is borshch, the home cooking of her native country, Ukraine. Beets, cabbage, carrots, onions, tomatoes — a hearty soup packed with vegetables.
“Borshch is very healthy. Beets especially — I think they’re good for your skin.”
Hers is the traditional version with a few touches of her own. The beets at the center of it carry betalains, pigments with antioxidant activity. Tomatoes bring lycopene, also known as an antioxidant, and carrots are loaded with beta-carotene, which your body converts into vitamin A.
The vitamin C you get from vegetables is essential for building the collagen that holds skin together. Getting that range of nutrients in something you actually want to eat is a good part of what makes borshch worth making.
There’s an unexpected Japanese twist in her borshch, too.
“My mother-in-law eats borshch with rice, like curry. At first I thought, what? But now when there’s no bread, I eat it with rice too.”
Aleksandra’s cooking started with Japanese home food, and it shows up on her table as much as it does in her chocolate — different food cultures, handled lightly.
Straight from Aleksandra — her skin-nourishing borsch recipe ›
06 For every woman doing a lot: “all of it is worth it”
We finished by asking what she’d say to women juggling work, family, and their own care. She thought about it for a moment, and what came back was strong and warm at the same time.
“Your effort is worth it. Life is worth it. Everything you’re working hard at is worth doing, and in the end it comes back to you.”
“It’s worth it. Life is worth it.”
Choosing your ingredients. Taking the time to make something properly. Looking after yourself. None of it is easy, which is exactly why it’s worth the time.
From the chocolate to the nightly routine, here’s what came through: the small choices you keep making, day after day, are what let you shine as yourself.
INFORMATION
Hoshi Chocolat is sold at pop-ups across Southern California, including regular appearances at Bread, Espresso & in Redondo Beach.
Upcoming pop-ups
November 14 Japanology
11:00am – 4:30pm
Valley Japanese CC
8850 Lankershim Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 91352
November 21 Maison La Foret
11:00am – 4:00pm
Courtyard / Marriott
2633 Sepulveda Blvd, Torrance, CA 90505
November 22 Tokyo Takes Over L.A.
6:00pm – 10:00pm
By Invitation Only
6855 Vineland Ave, North Hollywood, CA 91605
November 28 Japanology
11:00am – 4:30pm
MK Studio
2383 Lomita Blvd #109, Lomita, CA 90717
December 5 Japanology
10:00am – 3:30pm
Orange Island Culture Salon
17811 Sky Park Circle #J, Irvine, CA 92614
December 12 Japanology
11:00am – 4:30pm
Shumei Pasadena Center
2430 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91107
Dates and details change — check Hoshi Chocolat on Instagram for the latest.
@hoshi_chocolat · instagram.com/hoshi_chocolat
Bread, Espresso & Redondo Beach — 1212 S. Pacific Coast Hwy, Suite 100, Redondo Beach, CA
