STYLE AND TRAVEL
Cocoa heaven
Peter Grogan samples top of the range chocolates Chocaholism is one of the few ‘holisms’ that has left me unscathed — workaholism being another. I’ll admit to an upward curve to any graph of my consumption, but I would point to its other axis — the increasing quality of the choccy I’ve been able to get my sticky fingers on — as the cause. In the 1970s Bournville-slathered profiteroles proliferated unchecked and unloved but if, in the 1980s, Thorntons seemed like a good thing it was because it was, then. The 1990s saw the late onset of maturity, and a move from Godiva to Leonidas. In the Noughties, I became ever so sophisticated and wanted only Fauchon but, darling, you have to go to Paris and the divine New York store’s closed for refurbishment. And now I’ve alighted from my gilded, choccy-plated coach-and-four into the warm, chocolate-breathy embrace of paul.a.young’s Islington boudoir and I think I’ll stay here for ever and ever. But, as I said, luckily I’m not addicted.
It was those blighters in Brussels who, not so long ago, threatened to require Britain’s yeoman chocolate-makers to label their output as ‘vegelate’, on account of their use of fats other than cocoa butter. (That’s what they said in the Daily Mail, anyway, and that’s the next best thing to being true.) There’s been a lot of Nesquik under the bridge since then, however, and now we are blessed with some of the finest chocolatiers to be found anywhere. A number of them have formed the Academy of Chocolate to promote the appreciation of ‘real’ chocolate, which they rightly distinguish from ‘chocolate confectionery’.
There’s a frther distincde, I feel, hallow and devotees, of filled chocolates — the truffles, creams, pralines and caramels in all their i v e r s e glory — and the ascetic aficionados of the raw material itself. Green & Black’s has introduced a whole generation to the austere and solitary pleasures of the unadorned, unadulterated substance and, from there, they often move on to the hard stuff, to producers like Amedei and Valrhona.
Along with olive oil and balsamic vinegar bores, there is more than a touch of nerdism in people who boast that their percentage of cocoa solids is bigger than yours. But any cynicism on the subject should be dispelled by a nibble of Valrhona Grand Cru No. 1: Manjari (there they go again). The nibbling bit is important. Then you let it slowly melt on your tongue to allow the flavours to develop.
Chantal Coady, who started Rococo Chocolates 25 years ago, told me that this was what she would eat on the way to her execution. I thought it impolite to ask whether this was imminent, but it’s clearly something that has exercised her, as she later changed her mind in favour of a plain ‘House Truffle’ — good girl.
The Manjari (a restrained 64 p cocoa, if you must know) is indeed to very fine and smooth and fruity and as with all these fiber-chocs — the only bitterness you’ll experience is when you reach the till. Mind you, I defy anyone to eat more than a quid’s worth at a time, so destitution unlikely, even at £4.50 for an 85g bar.
Chantal’s early enthusiasm for Roald Dahl emerges in her bags of extraordinarily realistic chocolate spuds, olives, eggs and whatnot, but her traditional side also expresses itself among the rose, lavender and geranium creams.
The first thing that passed my lips at paul.a.young one chilly morning was a beaker of his drinking chocolate. It’s one of the finest, most spirit-warming things I’ve ever sipped, a quintessence of luxuriant silkiness, and as different from Nesquik as Petrus is to petrol. The only ingredient other than melted chocolate is some water to keep it, well, wet, I suppose. Paul was chef-patissier under Marco Pierre White and the discipline and devotion required for that job (not to mention the thick skin) have clearly stood him in good stead.
Of his wackier confections, the port-andStilton is counterintuitively lovely, though it should be with Colston Bassett and ten-yearold tawny in it. The ‘mainstream’ truffles and creams share the same alchemy of combining lightness and finesse with extraordinary intensity and richness.
I wondered what the choco-mystics, who have co-opted some of the vocabulary of wine connoisseurship to describe their experiences, would make of his Marmite and Pimm’s confections (I was relieved to find out they are not in the same filling). The food writer Sarah Jane Evans, a judge at the Academy of Chocolate’s recent ‘Golden Bean’ awards, is also a master of wine and uniquely qualified to comment. As for the otherworldly aspects, the slow shake of her head spoke silent volumes. ‘It is genuinely complex stuff, though, and you need to use a broad range of descriptive terms,’ is her verdict. ‘But anyone who tastes 375 chocolate products, as we did, isn’t going to feel too addicted to it at 4 a.m. the following morning.’
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