Lake champlain chocolates Story and photography by Lake Champlain Chocolates It started with a dare in 1983...in the kitchen of The Ice House Restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. Every year, founder Jim Lampman would buy his staff fancy chocolates as holiday gifts. One year his pastry chef confessed that those chocolates were pretty mediocre. So Jim dared him to make something better. Together they began making the most amazing, hand-rolled, creamy truffles. And the rest, as they say, is history.