The chocolate house that hides its machinery
There's a particular kind of luxury that announces itself loudly — and a rarer kind that simply works, so quietly you never think to ask how. Delicious Diamonds, the artisan chocolate maison founded in Leiria by Chef Joana Marinho, wanted the second kind. So we built it from nothing.
No template. No page-builder. No off-the-shelf platform pretending to be bespoke. We designed and engineered their entire digital house by hand — a lightweight PHP stack, a headless CMS, server-rendered for speed and search, bilingual in Portuguese and English, wrapped in a motion layer that feels less like a website and more like turning the pages of a beautifully bound book. Smooth-scroll, a custom cursor, 360° views of each creation, cinematic transitions between rooms.
That's what you see. Here's what you don't.
A site that learns your palate
We wrote a recommendation engine from the ground up — no third-party service, no rented algorithm. A short tasting quiz builds a flavour profile for each visitor, and the site responds: this is the coffret for you. It's a real recommender, tuned to chocolate, living entirely inside the house we built.
A members-only world
O Círculo is an invite-only membership platform with its own tiers — Membro and Exclusivo — gated collections, a member lounge, and a private line to the Chef herself: a group “table” and 1-to-1 chat. A small social world, engineered to feel like a velvet rope rather than a login screen.
Compose your own box, bonbon by bonbon
À Medida is a live atelier configurator. Customers build their own coffret on an interactive diamond grid, with real-time allergen roll-up as they go, engraving, and delivery scheduling. The complexity is enormous; the experience is play.
Commissions that close the loop
With Peça Única, a customer describes a dream piece. The Chef approves it with a custom price — or declines with a note. The customer pays that exact quote, and it becomes a real order. A genuine bespoke workflow, fully closed-loop, not a contact form pretending to be one.
The quiet engineering underneath
- Sommelier pairings — every creation matched to its ideal wine or spirit, down to region and vintage, with downloadable pairing cards.
- A full payments suite on Stripe — one-off boxes, bespoke orders, and A Carta monthly subscriptions with pause, cancel, and tier changes, all driven by lifecycle webhooks.
- Hand-numbered limited editions — each box assigned a real edition number (N.º X / Y) with a verifiable provenance certificate, generated after purchase.
- A Concierge channel feeding bespoke requests straight to the Chef's inbox.
- Gifting done properly — recipient tracking pages, handwritten card messages, occasion reminders.
- Modern auth — email, Google Sign-In, stay-signed-in.
- A 1% climate pledge — carbon removal funded on every single sale. Conscience, built into the checkout.
One tap to run the whole house
And tying it together: a mobile-first, installable command centre. Chef Joana changes an order's status, replies to members, reviews commissions and concierge requests, and reads her analytics — all from her phone, one tap at a time. The admin app is as considered as the storefront.
The whole point
A recommender system. A membership platform. A subscription engine. A custom commission workflow. A bespoke admin app. All hand-built, all woven into one calm, editorial chocolate house where nothing feels heavy and everything just happens.
That contrast is the craft: invisible complexity in service of effortless luxury. The customer should never see the machinery. They should only feel that someone cared enough to hide it.
The build is complete, payments tested end-to-end, and Delicious Diamonds is in final pre-launch — live soon.
If you've got something that deserves this kind of care, tell us about it — we'd love to build it with you.
FAQ
What is Delicious Diamonds?
Delicious Diamonds is an artisan chocolate maison founded in Leiria by Chef Joana Marinho. The site we built for it is bilingual (PT/EN), server-rendered for speed and search, and runs on a hand-built lightweight PHP stack with a headless CMS — no template or page-builder.
How does the site help me choose chocolates?
A from-scratch recommendation engine guides you through a tasting quiz that builds your flavour profile, then responds with a matching coffret. It also offers sommelier pairings with downloadable cards so you can serve each piece at its best.
What is O Círculo?
O Círculo is an invite-only membership with two tiers, Membro and Exclusivo. Members unlock gated collections, a member lounge, a group table, and 1-to-1 chat directly with the Chef.
Can I design my own chocolate?
Yes — two ways. À Medida is a live atelier configurator on an interactive diamond grid with real-time allergen roll-up, engraving, and delivery scheduling; Peça Única is a closed-loop bespoke order where you describe a dream piece and the Chef approves it with a custom price or declines.
How do payments and subscriptions work?
Payments run on Stripe for one-off orders, bespoke pieces, and monthly subscriptions you can pause, cancel, or change tier on via lifecycle webhooks. The site also handles hand-numbered limited editions with a provenance certificate, gifting with recipient tracking and handwritten card messages, email and Google Sign-In, and a 1% climate pledge funding carbon removal on every sale.