Hotel Chocolat

Before we start, here’s a disclaimer: I will gladly prostitute my own morals and this blog’s hard-won integrity in exchange for free food.

This week, I received an easter egg in the post, the results of a secretive deal struck with the PR company behind Hotel Chocolat, an unruly brigade of artisan chocolatiers who describe themselves as a “British-owned phenomenon brazenly committed to real, authentic chocolate.” Now I like the idea of being “brazenly committed”, as if they’re making champagne truffles and knocking up marzipan fancies without any regard for their own personal safety. It’s the kind of no-nonsense, testosterone-filled approach to sweet-making I appreciate.

So I agreed to review one of the company’s products, their Signature Egg, 20 quid’s worth of hand-made chocolate stuffed full of further hand-made chocolate.

egg

As you can see, it comes in a nice black and gold box. This choice of colours is supposed to represent luxury and mystery, I imagine, as if to convince the perspective purchaser that they’re buying into a lifestyle of heady elegance and unrivaled opulence, like Monte Carlo with added cocoa.

chocolate halves

The egg hatches to reveal its chocolate cargo, a dozen hand-decorated ovums containing all sorts of mildly alcoholic fillings. I sample a few.

tiramisu

Tiramisu

Pink Champagne

Pink Marc De Champagne

To be honest, it’s a mixed bag. The bellini truffle, named after the famous cocktail invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice in 1934, is quite possibly the nicest chocolate I’ve ever had, containing a suburb, velvety ganache of peach and champagne. On the other hand, the one marked quite clearly on the guide photo as containing advocaat quite clearly doesn’t. It’s whisky flavoured, leading me to wonder whether Hotel Chocolat have a whole batch of mis-labelled sweets they’re farming out on the sly to Britain’s greediest, most obese bloggers.

In fact, some of the flavours are a little odd: if you surveyed 100 people and asked what booze they’d like to find inside a truffle, I’m sure that calvados wouldn’t be a popular choice, and yet it’s here. On the other hand, Kir Royale is a great selection, because the blackcurrant creme de cassis base goes beautifully well with chocolate. It’s a natural fit.

Minor quibbles aside, it’s easily the best Easter egg I’ve ever had. Proper quality. The shell is thick, rich and creamy, while the truffles are exquisitely presented and, for the most part, quite exceptional. Finally, and most importantly, I imagine that if you gave one to a pretty lady, she’d want to have sex with you almost immediately.

27 Comments so far
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I am from Herts but now live in the USA and this is my favourite time of year because without fail I get a crushed and melted by always delicious MARS Easter egg. Chocolate in the US does not hold up well to the British stuff.

looks nice. can we buy that here in germany?
I especially like the impression of your teeth *lol*

how many free eggs do you receive now? mind sending one of these out to germany?

Oh, they have a Nottingham store?

I’m definitely getting one, then. My man loves his luxurious chocolate treats.

Why set your sights unfeasibly high? I’d give this egg to any lady on the half-chance of a bit of a knee-trembler.

OK, bought. Looking at it now, longingly. But will it be as good as Montezuma’s?

That’s an incredibly thick shell. I’m awestruck.

I’m a vocal advocaat (see what I did there?) of Hotel Chocolat. This review only serves to deepen my lust.

The picture is a little misleading, to be fair – the chocolate is very much at its thickest at the point where each half-shell meets the other.

But it’s still better than most.

Fraser – i’m surprised that a gourmand like yourself isnt already a member of their chocolate tasting club. You get some quite spectacular things from them, and also some quite spectacularly odd things. I highly recommend it.

I thought about it, but decided not to – mainly as a protest about the chocolate club website being borked when using Safari.

I reckon you should persuade them to make a limited edition range of blogjam chocolates. calf pancreas truffle anyone?

is fraser a gourmand or a gourmet? he loves BIG things, that’s for sure.

Why bother giving it to a girl? Just eat it all and BREATH on her, she`ll be crawling in your mouth. Well, at least my cat does this when I eat good chocolate.

Fraser, where can I buy one? The look delicious and I would really like to have sex.

I scoffed an enormous amount of Hotel Chocolat chocs yesterday. Try the sallted caramels: smooth milk chocolate containing rich, gooey, buttery caramel with hint of sea salt. it’s no doubt that I will end as fat as Fraser wants to be if I keep eating these. They are delish.

Terry, try http://www.hotelchocolat.co.uk/

I want to know how they get a whole suburb into a Bellini choc. It has to be better than the Bellini I actually had at Harry’s Bar in Venice- that was crap. When I pay seven quid for a poor drink in a cramped poshos boozer, I should at least find myself sitting next to a blazered Michael Winner.

If they’re anything like Sainsbury’s, they’ll be selling it with 75% off by now.

I knew there was a reason people blogged. This is is, isn’t it? Damn it. I’ve totally missed this trick.

I am just really pissed off that I wasn’t asked to help taste-test.

How much do you love your camera? If you are half as much in love with you camera as I am with mine, then I love my camera twice as much as you love yours…….

YOU WORSHIP THAT THING, don’t you??

And what the hell do you mean by ‘twenty quid’ please convert this into USD and Euros. TWENTY QUID?? What is that, about forty buck$ US?

QUOTE~Avoid “today I did this” posts, unless what you did was extraordinary, or unless you can turn it into something extraordinary.
END QUOTE~

Why should Fraser convert into forrin currency? Last time i looked he resided in the UK…

Good GOD man, this is a global community. Forget the UK, it’s just a nation of SHOPKEEPERS anyway. The USA has 259million persons. Therefore bow to US.

Remeber what we did to IRAQ.

World business is transacted in USD, thats UNITED STATES DOLLARS! Who the hell cares about british pounds? Cheesy paper currency, with an ugly old woman on it. PLEASE!

And you spelled ‘foreign’ incorrectly. AND you should capitalise ‘I’. And disco is dead, look it up.

i just got hold of their catalogue;impressive looking….where do they manufacture as a visit would be fun?

Beware the products are over priced and some are not as advertised , particularly the cocoa 100%.

Interesting response to a post about Easter eggs; you have some issues don’t you. Presumably you’d prefer the bitter chocolate.

[...] content with forcing me to eat a mammoth easter egg a few months back, this week the company elected to torment me further, posting a Rocky Road slab [...]

I’ve just found that Hotel Chocolat opened it’s doors over the pond. I’m a brit living in America and I’m with you – this chocolate stuff over here is pretty bad! I think there is more suger than cocoa?? Looks like Hotel Chocolat are ramping up still since many of the items are still waitlisted until mid november – http://www.hotelchocolat.com

As a chef specializing in chocolat—very good and authentic
jack

If you wanted any more, let me know and I’ll try and sort some out for you – maybe from somewhere else?

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