Leaders in temptation
It is generally expected that every element of a meal eaten in a highly rated restaurant will have been prepared on the premises - but when it comes to the chocolates served with coffee these days, that is not necessarily the case.
Two of the UK's three-Michelin-starred restaurants - Gordon Ramsay and the Fat Duck - buy in the chocolates they serve as petits fours from L'Artisan du Chocolat, one of a growing band of specialist chocolate makers that are raising the stakes in terms of quality and innovation.
If a chef can source a higher standard of chocolates from outside compared with those he can produce in his own kitchen, is it not sensible to buy them in?
"Yes," says chocolate expert Sara Jayne-Stanes, author of Chocolate, the Definitive Guide and herself supplier of chocolates to Sotheby's CafŽ in London. "Chocolate-making is a specialist job, and if a restaurant doesn't possess these skills, then it is far better to go to a chocolatier who does."
L'Artisan du Chocolat's founder, Gerard Coleman, possesses chocolate-making skills in abundance. Having worked as a pastry chef in restaurant kitchens, including a spell with Marco Pierre White at The Restaurant at London's Hyde Park hotel (now the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park), he became frustrated by the difficulties of making chocolates in far-from-perfect environments.
"Chocolate-making usually takes place squashed in a corner somewhere, and it is generally not regarded as a priority by most chefs," he says. "The handling and storage of chocolates are also problematic, as the temperature and humidity in restaurant kitchens is often too high."
In order to learn more about the art he took himself off to Belgium for a two-year apprenticeship with one of the world's leading chocolatiers, Pierre Marcolini, who now has his own chocolate shop in London. On his return to London in 2000 he opened L'Artisan du Chocolat.
Today, as well as making chocolates to sell through his retail outlet in Lower Sloane Street, London, he also works with chefs or works by himself to create bespoke chocolates for individual restaurants. This way the restaurant knows that customers are not going to be disappointed by being served something that is widely available elsewhere. It also enables the restaurant to be able to pass the chocolates off as their own - something that Coleman is not concerned about.
Contact with customers
"It really doesn't bother me," he says. "Most restaurants are now quite open about where their supplies come from, but if they choose not to be, that's down to them. I have the opportunity to have direct contact with customers through my shop."
Tailor-made chocolates created by Coleman include a trio of thin discs filled with fresh fruit purŽes, measuring 4cm across and just 3mm thick, for Gordon Ramsay. Dark chocolate discs are filled with raspberry, milk chocolate with passion fruit and white chocolate with apricot. And, as you'd expect for the Fat Duck, Coleman has collaborated with Heston Blumenthal to produce a range of unusually flavoured chocolates, including tobacco, leather, oak and pine.
As a prime mover in raising the standards of chocolate-making in the UK over the past 10 years, the Chocolate Society supplies its own two retail outlets in London as well as about 200 restaurants with a variety of different couvertures and handmade chocolates. Like Coleman, the founder of the business, Alan Porter, strongly believes that chocolate-making is not suited to the rough and tumble of the restaurant kitchen.
"Handmade chocolates, made from the very best ingredients, are highly perishable and very fragile - just one touch and they can be destroyed," he says. "Chefs are not chocolatiers and generally do not understand the science behind chocolate-making. Making good-quality chocolates by hand is a very time-consuming, labour-intensive business. Chefs can buy in a better product at a far cheaper price than they can produce themselves."
While many restaurants buy from the Chocolate Society's range of five standard truffles, others request bespoke chocolates. Gleneagles, for instance, buys six different whisky chocolates made with the six top whiskies served at the Scottish golfing hotel.
Some restaurants name the Chocolate Society as their supplier on menus, but most do not. Porter, like Coleman, is happy to supply chocolates to restaurants on these terms, but other artisan chocolate makers are less willing to do so.
Chantal Coady, who owns Rococo in King's Road, London, is in the latter camp. "I would only work with a chef if we could enter into a true collaboration and Rococo was given credit for making and supplying the chocolates," she says firmly.
Montezuma's, another specialist chocolate-maker, with shops in Brighton, Chichester and Windsor, does not supply restaurants at present, but with new, larger production facilities soon to open, would like to do so in the future.
Set up by husband-and-wife team Helen and Simon Pattinson, former City lawyers who turned their hand to chocolate-making after travelling to South America, Montezuma's creates chocolates from couverture made to its own unique recipe. Using 73% cocoa, the couverture is made in Spain, Switzerland and Belgium from Criollo beans sourced from a specific plantation in Venezuela. Flavourings include, among other things, chilli.
Meanwhile, chocolates from artisan chocolate-makers in Europe are also making their appearance alongside the coffee in restaurants. Amadei chocolates from Italy are served at the Four Seasons hotel at London's Canary Wharf, while Spanish chocolate-maker Enric Rovira supplies chocolates to properties as far apart as Burgh Island hotel in Devon and the Zetter in London. Think fillings of absinthe, saffron, pink peppercorn, cola (yes, the drink) and caramel if you want a handle on what he's doing.
Pushing the boundaries
Rovira and his fellow Spanish chefs are in the forefront of pushing chocolate boundaries. Like Rovira, Ferran Adriˆ's former pastry chef at El Bulli, Oriol Balaguer, is one of those in the vanguard. Interesting flavours and cutting-edge presentation are integral to his chocolate-making operation in Barcelona. We're talking along the lines of "space dust", black truffle honey, wasabi, and sunflower seeds with salt, which picks up on the Catalan tradition of eating a chunk of bread with chocolate and salt at tea time. Balaguer's chocolates are expected to be available in the UK later this year.
Some of Balaguer's style may be seen in the work of Paul Wayne Gregory, who has just launched himself as a chocolatier specialising in supplying restaurants. A former pastry chef at Peacock Alley in Dublin, he has recently returned to London after working under Balageur for six months.
"With Balageur I learnt that anything is possible," says Gregory, who intends to specialise in serving moulded chocolates to contrast with the norm in most restaurants of serving dipped chocolates or truffles. Not being foolhardy, he plans to offer standard vanilla and caramel chocolates, but his more challenging offerings include flavourings of strawberry and balsamic vinegar, fennel and fennel seed, chestnut and pear, and rhubarb and cream.
BOXTEXT: CONTACTS
Amadei
Chocolates distributed in the UK by King's Fine Foods
(020 8894 1111)
www.amadei.it
L'Artisan du Chocolat
020 7824 8365
www.artisanduchocolat.co.uk
The Chocolate Society
01423 322230
www.chocolate.co.uk
Enric Rovira
Chocolates available exclusively in the UK at Brindisa
(020 8772 1624)
www.enricrovira.com
Montezuma's
0845 450 6304
www.montezumas.co.uk
Oriol Balaguer
Chocolates will soon be available at Harrods
www.oriolbalaguer.com
Paul Wayne Gregory
07916 162778
www.paulwaynegregory.com
Pierre Marcolini
020 7795 6611
www.pierremarcolini.co.uk
Rococo
020 8761 8456
www.rococochocolates.com
BOXTEXT: WEBSITES
www.chocolateweek.co.uk
Provides links to several good artisan chocolate-makers together with news on a host of chocolate events.
www.seventypercent.com
Online sales outlet for quality chocolate, and forum for
chocolate-lovers everywhere.
CAPTION: Thanks to L'Artisan du Chocolat for supplying chocolates for
the photographs
CAPTION: "Handmade chocolates, made from the very best ingredients, are highly perishable and very fragile - just one touch and they can be destroyed"
Alan Porter
