Quest for chocolates in London

[Mette]

My lovely husband has given me a surprise trip to London for my birthday, leaving tomorrow

There will be lots of eating and drinking, but I also need chocolate recommendations! Please! What is good, what is overrated, what is best to avoid? Leaving tomorrow morning and having to work doesn't leave me much time to research, and besides, I prefer recommendations from the people in the know

Thank you

P.S. Will post pics if anything good comes my way in the UK

[Dan Ryan]

L'Artisan du Chocolat.

http://www.artisanduchocolat.com/Artisandu...cm/OurStore.htm

Is good.

[maher]

Pierre marcolini (shop on Kensington Church St.) is amazing...

they also have the best chocolate ice cream

[John DePaula]

You must stop by Fortnum & Mason, London’s famous department store. The chocolate buyer is Chloe Doutre-Roussel who advises many of the world’s top chocolatiers. (I haven't been there myself but have read her excellent book 'The Chocolate Connoisseur.')

I 2nd the vote for Marcolini, BTW.

I've heard good things about l'artisan du chocolat as well.

I found this site: Urban Path - Chocolate Shops in London that may have some useful maps and addresses.

Cheers!

[Kerry Beal]

A friend and fellow chocolatier just returned from London. She would recommend Melt and l'artisan du chocolat. She was disappointed in Rococco. She had been very taken with all the descriptions of chantel coadys work before she went, and went so far as to take a course with her while there, but didn't care for the chocolate itself. Great place to look at for marketing and appearance however.

[adamru]

I went to London in the spring and at the time Harrods had the Truly British collection. Chocolates filled with sherry trifle, apple crumble, sticky toffee and other classic desserts. And you can go to Laduree while you're there.

[escry]

The Urbanpath link above has all but one (and a few more) of my recommendations. The missing shop, that of Paul Young is in Islington, North London.

Enjoy your trip.

[LucyInAust]

My sister just sent me a package from London from the chocolate places she visisted:

L'artisan du Chocolat

Paul Young

Rococo

The Chocolate Society

Fortnum & Masons

Gill Wing

La Maison du Chocolat

Theobrom Cacao

Carluccios (not really pure choc place!)

She got me a plain truffle from each place, plus lots more!! I really liked the Rococo chocolates.

London is also having a Chocolate Week starting the 16th October ... and by huge coincidence that also happens to be the week I am in the UK (unfortunately not in London tho!! ... might see if I can do a day trip to London to partake in the festivities!).

Only problem with these lovely chocolates ... I'm desperately trying to lose weight before I go overseas ... and they are soooo tempting (plus they say on some of the packets that they should be eaten within a very short time frame!).

I think my sister did a tour around the chocolate places in London (not 100% sure). Might be worth looking into options!

(I knew she was sending me some chocolate ... I thought maybe a plain bar or two ... not this amazing collection!!! She is a very generous sister ... I also got chocolate packets from Peru and the USA! Certainly beats a crappy t-shirt or postcard!!!)

[Lesley C]

Wow Lucy, nice sister!

I would give a serious thumbs down to Fortnum's chocolate selection.

Despite all the hype over Chloe Doutre-Roussel, I found her chocolate selection, as in brands like Cluizel and Amedei to be minimal (I can get a ton more varieties in my local gourmet shop), and the quality of bonbons (chocolate candies) is seriously lacking. I was told they are not made by Fortnums, but bought in Switzerland and Belgium. Very sweet and granular. Really second rate.

Mme. Doutre-Roussel 's book is very nice and she has a selection of single origin chocolates that are sold in a pretty box. But otherwise I really don't see what all the fuss is about.

[John DePaula]

Wow Lucy, nice sister!

I would give a serious thumbs down to Fortnum's chocolate selection.

Despite all the hype over Chloe Doutre-Roussel, I found her chocolate selection, as in brands like Cluizel and Amedei to be minimal (I can get a ton more varieties in my local gourmet shop), and the quality of bonbons (chocolate candies) is seriously lacking. I was told they are not made by Fortnums, but bought in Switzerland and Belgium. Very sweet and granular. Really second rate.

Mme. Doutre-Roussel 's book is very nice and she has a selection of single origin chocolates that are sold in a pretty box. But otherwise I really don't see what all the fuss is about. 

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Ha! Very interesting, indeed! Especially about F & M. I liked her book a lot but didn't agree with all e.g. I like fruit and chocolate combinations, as well as tea and chocolate.

Thanks for the informative post.

[Mette]

Finally some time to follow up on the trip to London.

First of all, thanks for all the grat recommendations - Next year, my husband will have to give me week instead of a weekend. Lucy - what a great sister to have!

Anyway, the trip turned out to be a bit of a sugar rush (and shoppipng, but that is a different story). I stopped in to as many chocolate places as I could muster (but not as many as I would have liked), but one has to take into accout that one's travelling companion may not be quite so obsessed with chocolate and will want curry and gastroPubs as well

Straight for the best experience of the lot:

L'Artisan du Chocolat. Hands down the best chocolate I've had: extremely tasty, smooth, interesting and well balanced - try them! Bought a full selection of the couture selection, and there were some real winners: the sechuan pepper, sesame praline, lemon/thyme and dried lime were wonderful. They were all interesting and well worth eating!

Stopped in at Maison du Chocolat, which was a bit of a dissapointment. Not particularly interesting chocolates. Some of them had a bit of a waxy taste, as if they'd stored wrong (maybe on the jurney across the channel...). The bark was nice though.

Didn't buy anythig at Prestat and Rococo. Had a couple of samples at Rococo. They both seem to go for the looks rather than the taste, and at Prestat a lot of the chocolates had some bloom on them - not a good sign.

The chocolate department at Fortnum & Mason was remarkable, a very wide selection of bars - but again, some had bloom or the wrappers were greasy from storage. Bought a small selection of the chocolates, and they were nice but nothing I couldn't get pretty much anywhere - including in the chocolate desert of Copenhagen. F&M is a fun place to visit, though, and always makes me think of an anthropology anecdote, where a young anthropologist (a long time ago) going on a fieldwork in Africa is told to bring a large F&M hamper - good advice for all trips, I should think.

Chocolate wise l'Artisan du Chocolat is a clear winner!!! - sorry to miss Marcolini, Melt and Paul Young - oh well. Next time!! I'd be interested in tasting the Melt water based ganaches.

We did have afternoon tea in Laduree in Harrods - mostly for the experience, I would not normally go to Harrods, as it is a bit of a nightmare of tourists in the food hall - there's now Krispy kreme Donut there . The tea was......overwhelming. We went as a small group and shared the cake selection which ment 6 kinds of cakes, each, after having sandwiches, brioche and croissants. The cake selection had: some kind of dense chocolate cake with chocolate mousse, a plaisir Sucree (which I will have to try and make from the Pierre Herme book), A very nice tart with passion fruit curd and fresh raspberries (great combination), raspberry macaroons sandwhiched with rose & lychee pastry cream, a pistachio and sour cherry mousse cake, and finally a pistachio Religieuse, which is choux pastry filled with pistachio pastry cream. At this point we did have leave unfinished cake on the plates, but what a cake rush. It was a fun experience. I meant to buy some of the filled macaroons to take back to the hotel, but after the tea, I thought I'd never want to eat another cake ever again.

The tea room is worth a visit - you can chooses whether tou want to sit on the balcony or in the tea-room which is all black and gold: very decadent. There wasn't enough actual tea to wash down all the goodies, but otherwise a fun experince if your arteries can handle the clogging.

All in all, it was a great trip, and I can only recommend a chocolate focused weekend in london (next time I'll have to go with someone as choc-nuts as my self)

Thanks again for the great recommendations!!!

p.s. The camera was out of order while in London, so no pics - sorry

Edited October 28, 2006 by Mette (log)