London goes cocoa for chocolatiers' delicious new dishes

Fortunately, chocolatiers are forward-thinking. Healthier, hipper, more Instagram-friendly, the next generation is rising to meet the new demand. “People question everything they eat now — and we expect them to,” says chocolatier Phil Landers, owner of LAND in Bethnal Green. So if we are what we eat, what does your chocolate choice say about you?

For vegans, or people looking for chocolate without milk, options are out there. Chococo, run by husband-and-wife team Andy and Claire Burnet, makes vegan-friendly chocolate by hand on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast (a £29.95 vegan hamper includes dark chocolate bars studded with pumpkin and sunflower seeds and they also have an actual chocolate teapot).

Love Cocoa claims to have launched Europe’s first avocado chocolate bar, made with freeze-dried avocado pulp powder, which is vegan, naturally. It tastes better than it sounds.

Coconut is also a good dairy substitute. Ombar’s Coco Mylk uses coconut sugar: it’s creamy. just like milk chocolate, but without any of the dairy. Meanwhile, The Chocolatier — the online business run by award-winning Aneesh Popat — has created a water ganache: a smooth truffle with 40 to 50 per cent fewer calories. Which, to be honest, just means we’ll eat twice as many.

Good for: non-dairy queens, by choice or necessity.

Ansel has turned hot chocolate into an art. His Blossoming Hot Chocolate constitutes marshmallows which slowly “blossom” and expand, unfurling into a flower, as ambitious as it is delicious. “There’s this moment before you take a sip where there’s movement, and it’s alive,” he says. “As the marshmallow melts, the hot chocolate becomes richer and silkier.”

Good for: latte art lovers looking for a new cup.

Paul A Young’s beef-dripping caramel is the talk of chocolate town (imagine...), combining Madagascan dark chocolate with award-winning beef dripping. “It’s all about umami,” says Young, who has been tinkering with the sweet-to-salty ratio for 11 years. “Far from being ‘beefy’, the dripping adds a savoury note without being greasy or fatty.” Beef dripping is used instead of butter to make caramel. “At first taste, you get a hit of savoury; the smooth, full-flavoured, richness comes in to complement the buttery texture, ending with an experience that mirrors the sensation of a salted caramel.”

The experimentation doesn’t end there. Wholegrain mustard or brie are ingredients in Fifth Dimension Chocolates and beetroot and cabernet sauvignon vinegar are flavours at The Chocolatier — Aneesh Popat. At The Chocolate Show last weekend, The Boy Who Bakes made matcha chocolate oreos, which were snapped up fast.

Good for: early adopters looking for the next big thing.

The woke consumer wants to know the story behind their bars. “I was at the Chocolate Show last weekend, and it was great see more people prepared to pay upwards of £5 for a 70g bar of better tasting and more ethically produced chocolate,” says Jennifer Earle, founder of food website Taste Tripper. “There are 24 brands currently in the UK. All of these small-batch makers cut out most of the middle-men in the supply chain and pay the farmers a minimum of three times what the big manufacturers pay, so this really is the most ethical chocolate you can buy.”

Beau Cacao sells seasonal bars in London from carefully sourced crops, currently from Asajaya in Malaysia and Serbia. Their focus is on “fair and equitable standards” (they even have tote bags which read “Chocolate is changing”). Likewise, chocolatier Amelia Rope Chocolate, pictured left — with tastefully packaged pistachio and sea salt bars — is a force for good, encouraging Colombian farmers who were involved in the cocaine industry to switch to growing cocoa.

Good for: anyone with a conscience.

So Instagram-friendly it doesn’t need a filter, Barry Callebaut’s “ruby” became the first new natural colour of chocolate in more than 80 years last month, claiming to be the first new natural colour for the foodstuff since Nestlé unveiled white chocolate.

It’s been in development for 13 years and is made from the Ruby cocoa bean, with no extra colours or flavours.

Good for: anyone with an iPhone.

Taste begins with the bean. Landers focuses on flavour profile — where the bean is grown, fermented, and where the chocolate-maker roasts or grinds it. These are key to the “terroir” or sense of place (wine and whisky aficionados will notice a common language).

“The cocoa bean has more than 400 flavour components — more than a wine grape,” he says. Venezuelan cocoa beans are “subtler, with caramel and fudge notes that lend themselves to a nice milk chocolate”. Then there’s a bean from Nicaragua, which is “acidic, and translates into citrus, fruity notes”.

Good for: the chocolate connoisseur looking to impress at an alt cheese-and-wine night.