This Michelin-Starred Chef Has Opened A Secret Chocolate Shop

5 days ago

A chef-created chocolate emporium has arrived in London

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He’s the Scottish chef behind restaurants like The Loch & The Tyne and Ugly Butterfly – but for his next venture, Adam Handling is turning his attention to chocolate. Just opened in Covent Garden is the Adam Handling Chocolate Shop, two minutes round the corner from his Michelin-starred restaurant, The Frog.

Inside Adam Handling’s New Chocolate Shop

The opening – which was kept under wraps until launch day – is built around the environmentally-friendly ethos which Handling has become famous for. There’s a strong focus on provenance, with cocoa sourced from countries like India, Peru and Madagascar, and chocolate produced in-house. The shop is also working with XOCO Gourmet, the world’s first chocolate producer, which practises regenerative farming, to develop its own single variety cacao.

A haven for sweet-toothed shoppers, the store will offer a range of hand-painted chocolates, truffles, foraged caramel bars, freshly baked cookies and brownies. There will also be 12 varieties of hot chocolate on offer (with optional whipped cream, marshmallow and spice add-ons, and special seasonal editions), plus florentines, pastries and more.

The boxes of chocolate are perfect for gifts too, with each bon bon hand painted – available in boxes of either four, 12 or 25, with the option to add hand-crafted wood display boxes. Flavours include rum caramel, woodruff caramel, Krug champagne, caramelised biscuit, banoffee, Sicilian pistachio, and orange marmalade.

Better still, the chocolate is made with natural ingredients using single origin cacao beans – and rich in antioxidants, which are beneficial for skin, heart and mood health.

‘The cultivation of cacao tells a powerful story,’ says Handling. ‘Similarly to coffee, every cocoa bean has different expressions, based on its locality. In the UK, it’s common to think that chocolate tastes the same – that generic word, “chocolate”. But gone are those days. My vision is to create the purest expression of perfection, utilising sustainable chocolates that really showcase the essence of that fruit. The flavour of these chocolates is representative of the soil, the air and the hands that nurtured them. So, it’s easy for us to create stunning, hand painted chocolates in Britain, as we already have the foundations of excellence to play with.’