I thought it was bad planning to have both Cocktail Week and Chocolate Week at the same time, but it does present the opportunity to match cocktails with specific chocolates. Chocolate Ecstasy Tours organised such an event in the new cocktail bar (Longitude 0°8′) in Le Méridien Piccadilly.
The matching was a bit hit and miss, but on the whole good fun and an excellent concept. We had a total of 7 cocktails and lots of canapes, which made this a very good deal. There was also the goodie bag with a selection of chocolate samples from Melt, Chocolate and Love and Paul A Young (who was among the Chocolatiers in attendance).
Chocablog, who were lucky enough to be involved in “helping out” during the preparation stage for this event, have a great post on it – love the photographs, see :-
Overindulged at the “Confessions of a Chocaholic Afternoon Tea at the Hilton” in the Podium Restaurant on the ground floor of the Park Lane Hilton.
This afternoon tea is good value for money, compared to a lot of the hotel based afternoon tea options in London (£29.50 including a glass of champagne).
The three tier cake stand used looks great and I was impressed by the chocolate selection, even the gold sprinkled base was made out of chocolate. There is so much here, making the pretty take away handbags a must. The Tea selection was also interesting and extensive.
The open sandwiches were beautifully presented, tasty and fresh. The chocolate spread with Chocolate Chip scones was also a nice touch. Not so keen on the cup cakes though which were rather ordinary.
The let down was more on the service side, which although friendly, was really slow. It was hard getting attention and it was nearly a hour before we started! I am also not sure that “I did not have time to bring the extra sandwiches is a particularly good excuse” in a hotel of this calibre.
The room was pleasant enough but had rather bad acoustics and the use of live and canned music really did not work.
In celebration of chocolate week, Almeida has joined forces with chocolatier Paul A Young to create a unique three course “chocolate” menu. Each dish being combined with a complementary chocolate. So basically instead of wine matching, it’s chocolate matching!.
The whole concept of a chocolate menu seemed a bit of a gimmick, so I was pleasantly surprised just how serious this food was.
The meal began well with a very nice goats cheese appetizer/canapé. Then I had a stunning foie gras dish (described as pan fried foie gras, chocolate and orange – 64% Dominican Republic chocolate with a balance of sweetness and a delicate nutty, smoky taste.) I thought this dish was very subtle with great flavour combinations.
For my next course I went with the pork (braised suckling pig, creamed savoy – with Paul A Young’s Ras el hanout spiced chocolate), again it was a dish that was beautifully complimented by the almost savory chocolate sauce. We even asked the waiter for the recipe and to his credit he went out of his way to get it for us.
One of my chocoholic companions decided to forgo the main course and have two desserts instead. No problem, they just provided him with a “jumbo” sized dessert as the main course. For the rest of us, there was a choice between two desserts. A chocolate souffle that was not so well received and a stunning dessert called Chocolate 3 ways, which included some lovely fudge.
Normal Size Dessert – Chocolate 3 waysJumbo sized dessert
On the wine front to match the chocolate theme, we went for a rather nice Portuguese red.
2006 Duas Quintas Branco, Ram os Pinto, Douro, Portugal
The only low mark here related to the wine service where the waitress kept overfilling glasses, which meant that the wine was not evenly distributed and forced us to get a second bottle to make up the short fall. (We would have gone for a second bottle anyway, but would have preferred to do it in our own time).
We then finished the meal with coffee and petits fours.
The layout is very well designed with a distinct bar area and a dinning area that consists almost entirely of round tables. I love round tables in a restaurant, they work so well for both groups of two (both dinners can face into the room) and groups of 6 (much more sociable as you can have cross table conversations with everyone). The acoustics were also very good, we could not hear anything from the neighbouring tables.
The bar is worth a visit on it’s own, we mainly indulged in yummy Chocolate Martinis, but there are some other cocktails on the menu that are worth trying. One of the champagne cocktails, “The Morgan” (Morgan’s Spiced rum, gomme syrup, cranberry juice and champagne) was very nice too.
Chocolate Martini at the Almeida
The restaurant has 2 AA Rosettes, which it certainly merits. It is also off course an ideal pre-theatre venue for the Almeida Theatre. I certainly plan to return, even without Chocolate week.
We spend a couple of hours at this event, sampling the wares of a few interesting chocolatiers. There was a display of chocolate art and a number of stands. The exhibitors ranged from the lower end of the scale, i.e., high street brands like Thorntons and Hotel Chocolat, right up to the high end bespoke chocolatiers like Paul A Young.
Chocolates can be a bit like wine, once you have tasted the really good stuff there is no going back, or to quote Michel Roux “Once you have discovered the pleasure, richness, complexity and taste sensations of fine chocolate, you will never look at chocolate in the same way”. So sorry Thorntons we walked right passed your stand.
From what we could see, there were two real standouts, they were both relative newcomers in the field.
The first was Paul Wayne Gregory a former sous chef who also gave one of the talks, he is definitely going places with 9 of the chocolates in his selection being award winners. PWG is at the top of his game, he currently provides chocolates to Michelin star chef Gary Rhodes, and his latest addition a rum chocolate is stunning.
Update: I have just tried another one of his chocolates – called “Space Dust”, superb!.
PWGs slogan – Indulgence is everything
The other standout was based in Leeds of all places, they were Lauden Chocolates who presented their selection in very simple but elegant transparent boxes. However the presentation alone would not have sold me on them, if they had not got the taste right. Like PWG, they are all about intense flavours, that really work with the chocolate.
As part of my chocolate indulgence weekend I also managed to squeeze in a chocolate martini at 5th View.
Unless you are in an area that specialises in Tea Shops, its often hard to find good venues to relax with a coffee or tea and eat cake. Why go to the big chains like Starbucks, when you have alternatives.
London
If you really want to go up market and have Afternoon Tea somewhere grand, like The Athenaeum or The Berkeley, then great, but if you are looking for something cheaper, then here are a few options.
Actually the Starbucks I have been to in New York are a lot better than London. I had an amazing piece of Cognac and Pumpkin cheese cake in one on the Upper East Side, but for something more unique try:-
