Chocs Away: Where To Celebrate Chocolate Week
Get deep in the brown stuff this Chocolate Week! To celebrate this wheel-and-sliced-bread-topping invention we’re spending the week gorging ourselves to the nth degree, complete with the expected chocolate hangover and cascading brown projectile vom. Happy chocolate week…
The Arch London
If you’re after a wedge of pure goodness, look no further than The Arch London. They’ve put together a special triple chocolate tart with clementine compote for the occasion, together with clotted cream ice cream just for chocolate week. But if you’re going to miss chocolate week (and if so, who are you?), then fear not because Head Chef Gary Durrant is so happy with it that he’s going to add a similar version to the autumn menu. So double whammy.
Where: 50 Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch, London, W1H 7FD, United Kingdom
Website: www.thearchlondon.com
The Wolseley
The Wolseley is pretty much THE place for afternoon tea (we’re going to get mail about this comment, but I stand by it!), and in honour of Chocolate Week they’ve launched their own Chocolate Afternoon Tea. Put together in partnership with Canton Tea, the experience has seen the restaurant’s pastry team create a menu combing the savoury elements of a traditional afternoon tea with the sweet notes of white, milk and dark chocolate. Think finger sandwiches with roast beef with pumpernickel and cocoa bread , sultana scones served warm with strawberry jam and a white chocolate cream plus an assortment of pastries including a dark chocolate and raspberry éclair, a milk chocolate orange tart and a white chocolate & passion fruit delice. And not to forget the teas themselves, including Canton Tea’s Chocolate Tea, a blend of loose leaf Assam and Yunnan, Peruvian cocoa nibs and Madagascan vanilla. Literally ‘yum’.
Where: 160 Piccadilly, London W1J 9EB, United Kingdom
Website: www.thewolseley.com
Sanderson Hotel
One of our all-time favourite hotels, The Sanderson, are taking a studious approach to Chocolate Week with a masterclass. Their ‘Masterclass In Chocolate’ (does what it says on the tin, right?) sees chocolatier-in-chief William Curley give insight into the wonderful world of chocolate and helps build an understanding of how to make a variety of fine chocolate truffles. The masterclass involves: A History of Chocolate, Bean to Bar, Basic Ganache’s, Tempering Chocolate, Piping, Dipping and Coating Chocolate Truffles, plus a Chocolate Talk and Tasting. What’s more (and here’s the good bit) everyone gets to make two types of truffles during the course of the evening, to take home and gorge on before your other half gets home.
Where: 50 Berners Street, London, W1T 3NG, United Kingdom
Website: Get tickets here...
Yo Sushi at Selfridges
You know what goes together really well? Raw fish and chocolate… Okay, not so much, perhaps, but it hasn’t stopped YO! Sushi getting in on the Chocolate Week act, with the UK’s first handmade sushi maki rolls… made entirely from chocolate. Available exclusively at YO! Sushi at Selfridges. The four piece sushi set will hit the restaurant’s famous ‘kaiten’ conveyor belt throughout National Chocolate Week and will blend the finest Belgian chocolate with the sushi concept, all thanks to chocolatiers Choc on Choc.
Where: 400 Oxford Street, Marylebone, W1A 1AB
Website: www.yosushi.com
The Bentley London
I don’t know about you, but if the thought of being gently daubed in chocolate makes you slightly nauseous then think again, because at the Bentley Hotel in Kensington they’ll be scrubbing you down with cocoa and you’re going to love it. Genuinely. Their Chocolate Week special at the in-house La Kalon Spa involves a 30 minute cocoa scrub, followed by a 45 minute chocolate essence massage treatment. As if you wouldn’t be overpowered by the stereo effects of all-round chocolate, guests can then wind down with a luxury hot chocolate.
Where: 27-33 Harrington Gardens, South Kensington, London, SW7 4JX, United Kingdom
Website: www.thebentley-hotel.com
Bluebird Chelsea
Bluebird Chelsea are celebrating National Chocolate Week with two special chocolate creations: a Choc Cherry Martini and a glazed double chocolate mousse. Over the week guests can sip on the bittersweet Choc Cherry Martiniwith Belvedere vodka, Mozart chocolate liqueur, creme de cerise, chocolate bitters and sweet vermouth in the bar downstairs, or climb upstairs and enjoy a rich glazed white and dark chocolate mousse with praline crumble.
Where: 350 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UU, United Kingdom
Website: www.bluebird-restaurant.co.uk
The Jones Family Project Restaurant & Bar
The guys over at meataholics Jones Family Project have proven they’re also chocohlics because their most enduring menu item is actually their triple chocolate brownie with coconut sorbet, salted caramel. It’s amazing. Like, actually.
Where: 78 Great Eastern Street Shoreditch EC2A 3JL
Website: www.jonesfamilyproject.co.uk
