As much as I hate to admit it, I love chocolate. Ever since I started work in Hotel Chocolat I have been obsessed, so I was extremely happy to hear there was a whole festival devoted to it at the Southbank center in London. I wasn’t too sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. There were loads of different stalls exhibiting a wide range of magical cocoa in different forms (including the lovely people who employ me). There was a lot of dairy free chocolate such as Roar Chocolate and also The Chocolate Heart. There was the more traditional chocolates from chocolatiers like Rococo who had an amazing display of painted Easter eggs:
and William Curley who had a sea salt caramel bar: That if it wasn't the end of term and I wasn’t already well into my overdraft I would have liked to buy!
I did how ever buy a few truffles, some vegan ones from The Chocolate Heart that were really smooth considering they didn’t contain any dairy. And also some from a stall I have completely forgotten the name of, but had some interesting flavours, like Rosemary and Armagnac. I asked the man to pick me five interesting flavours and hopefully I can work out what they are later. Although I missed the chocolate making demonstrations, Choc Chick were showing off their Chock Chick kit for making your own chocolate and demonstrating how to use it.
You could also enjoy chocolate in a more unconventional way; there was a chilli and chocolate stall, where you could enjoy cocoa infused chilli nachos and burritos. I tried a tiny veggie chilli sample, and it was definitely different, really spicy with the bitter kick from the cocoa. So it’s safe to say the chocolate obsession has been fed even more.