About Us
We left the kitchen.
To build something of our own.
Miann started the way a lot of honest food businesses do — at a market stall, with a folding table, a cabinet of handmade pastries, and a quiet belief that Auckland deserved something better than what was already out there.
That was Brian and Roselle Campbell. And it was the beginning of everything.
Michelin kitchens.
A long road to Ponsonby.
Brian trained in Michelin-starred kitchens and Relais & Châteaux hotels before making his way to New Zealand. Here, he worked alongside some of the country's most respected chefs — at The French Café under Simon Wright, at Bracu and Kermadec under Peter Thornley, and as the opening executive pastry chef at Hilton Queenstown.
Then came Milse — the celebrated dessert bar in Britomart that Brian conceptualised and opened, and which quickly became one of Auckland's most talked-about dining experiences.
He could have stayed. Instead, he and Roselle chose to leave and build something entirely their own.
Markets. Fort Street.
Then something unexpected.
Miann's first chapter was all about patisserie — the craft of fine desserts, made with exceptional technique and real ingredients. From the market stall came our first store on Fort Street. Then Miann Britomart, a year later. Then Morningside, where the chocolate factory took shape. Then Ponsonby.
It was at Morningside that something shifted. The chocolate — which had begun as an ingredient, a foundation for what we made — became a story in itself. We started making it from scratch. Not buying couverture and melting it down, but starting with raw cacao beans from the Pacific and South America, roasting them, stone grinding them in small batches, and turning them into something entirely our own. The Miann Chocolate Factory was born.
When the Morningside lease came to an end, we moved the entire factory operation to Ponsonby Central — and it's been there ever since. Two locations remain today — Britomart and Ponsonby — and the chocolate is still made the same way it was when we first figured out how to do it properly.
Made from scratch.
No shortcuts. No compromises.
Everything at Miann is made in-house, by hand, using ingredients we've chosen carefully. Our cacao comes from smallholder farmers in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Peru — origins we chose because of the quality of the beans and the integrity of the supply chain.
Our petit gâteaux are made fresh daily. Our celebration cakes are built to order. Our chocolate bars are stone ground in small batches and wrapped by hand. None of it is bought in, repackaged, or made somewhere else.
We are founding members of A Bar Apart — a New Zealand certification for bean-to-bar chocolate makers who are transparent about their cacao sources and their process. It's a community of makers who believe, as we do, that chocolate can be something extraordinary when it's made with real care and real craft.
We opened Miann because we wanted to make things we were genuinely proud of, in a place that felt worth visiting and family friendly. That hasn't changed.
We hope you feel it every time you walk through the door.
— Brian, Roselle & Lachlan Campbell
Miann Chocolate Factory, Auckland
