As made-up national holidays go, this one is one of our favourites!
As if we need another excuse to gorge on family sized bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, National Chocolate Week has come along and given us a legitimate cause to celebrate everything sweet in this world.
From theatrical desserts to boozy and comforting cocktails, there are so many ways to get your teeth into the good stuff this October and like the martyrs that we are, we have researched only the best for you, so we give you the 8 ways that you can celebrate National Chocolate Week:
The Theatrical Way
The Savoy's new dining experience, The Temptation Wheel menu is just about all of our chocolate fantasies in one. Served beneath the glass domed atrium of the Thames Foyer, the desserts - which were created by the hotel's executive pastry chef, Ludwig Hely and his in-house patisserie team - will be served up on a mahogany spinning wheel with everything split up into flavours with light and fresh to rich and indulgent alongside a uniquely blended cocktail.
The Lavish Way
Gordon Ramsay’s Union Street Café will be serving up a five senses chocolate platter with bitter, salted, sour, sweet and umami tasters. While his York & Albany restaurant will be serving up a rich, gooey chocolate sharing platter. While sharing may be considered caring, we’ll probably be ordering this one up for ourselves.
The Fanatical Fan Way
This is what dreams are made of. Head to the Chocolate Show at the Olympia National Hall where you can bask in all that is good and great. Cocoa Runners, whose bars of chocolate are the equivalent to bottles of fine wine, will be hosting a Chocolate Salon at the event where you can meet chocolatiers, attend craft lectures and most importantly of all, taste samples. It's basically the Holy Grail for anyone who has a massive all-encompassing sweet tooth.
The Foodie Way
Double up on chocolatey dishes at Jersey’s Michelin starred restaurant, Bohemia where you can order a White Chocolate and Caviar starter and then end the meal on a high with their Chocolate with Bourbon and Lime dessert. Perfect.
The Relaxing Way
Chocolate Massage If you weren’t slightly scared by Gene Wilder singing Pure Imagination in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, then The Comforter treatment at Lush Spas across the country is the perfect treat for you this week. The all-over, chocolate and rose exfoliating body treatment, which uses a chocolatey scrub with aduki beans and tamarind, warm illipe butter and carob syrup to exfoliate the body takes 90 minutes and costs £85.
The Posh Way
Harvey Nichols has partnered up with award-winning and innovative chocolatier Paul A. Young to create a Chocolate Afternoon Tea which will be served across all of their sites. The tea, which falls within Harvey Nichols' Art of Scent month will explore the connection between fragrance, taste and texture while also including lots of the good, sweet and sugary stuff. You can enjoy the savoury chocolate ganache and gorgonzola sandwich before finishing off with Moroccan spiced chocolate pots. Someone get us a reservation, STAT!
The Boozy Way
Cocktail aficionados, The Manhattans Project have taken up their three-month long residency at the Hawaiian fusion restaurant, POND Dalston and with them they have bought an ingenius way to celebrate NCW and get suitably tipsy. Order up the Chartreuse Chocolate cocktail which is made with Cherry Heering, Chartreuse and Hot Chocolate for a way to get boozy on the cocoa beans.
P.S. The Easy Way...
If you’re not so sure you can convince your friends or partner that this is a national holiday which truly needs celebrating in all ways possible, turn down the lights in your flat, take residence on the sofa with a duvet and crack open the emergency supply of chocolate and watch The Notebook. You deserve it.