2009 Chocolate Awards diary – part 1

Chocolate life has been a little quieter the last few months. The long months of work that went into the Academy of Chocolate Awards finally died down, we got past Easter and now there’s the onset of the warmer weather.

Hectic times are back though. This week sees the official presentation ceremony of the 2009 Awards, and many guests, entrants and winners are gathering in London for the presentations on Tuesday night.

With so much going on it’s hard to find much writing time, so this is going to be a rather rushed series of diary posts as I try to keep up. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for regular updates.

Ecuador tasting at Melt with Lourdes Delgado

Things got off to a running start with the arrival last Wednesday of Lourdes Delgado from Ecuador, via New York. After just a day to settle in, Lourdes was soon gainfully employed with an Ecuador themed tasting at Melt.

Having arrived late and flustered after a hurried visit to the Mary franchise in the new Westfield shopping mall, we soon settled and got organised for the tasting. The event had been arranged at short notice, so it was an intimate crowd, but an excellent night none-the-less. We’ll be announcing regular events with Melt in the near future.

At the ICCO and meeting Art Pollard

The next morning we had an early meeting with Sara Jayne Stanes, Kate Johns of Chocolate Week fame and Dr Jan Vingerhoets Executive Director of the ICCO. We were there to discuss a proposed Academy of Chocolate conference about fine chocolate and cacao, to be held sometime in early 2010. We were able to get Dr Vingerhoets support and promise of cooperation with the ICCO, but we also realised we were just at the start of a lot of work to make this happen. More on this later in the year.

After this it was back to Heathrow to pick up Art Pollard of Amano chocolate, along with his wife Mihoko and friend and Amano customer Matt Caputo, of Tony Caputo’s Market & Deli in Utah’s Salt Lake City. Great to catch up with Art again and we were already well into swapping chocolate stories and samples while tubing it into London on the Piccadilly Line. We dropped Art and co at their hotel and I dashed back home to do some work and get on with my assigned tasks in preparation for the Awards ceremony.

The next morning Lourdes jetted off to Moscow for an ICCO meeting. Lots of politics going on there around Ecuador, Nacional and CCN-51 and the new fine or flavour growing countries association. I’ll try to write that up before the week is over, but that needs a post of its own.

Meeting of the chocolate politburo in Hoxton Square

After a leisurely breakfast and email catch-up I headed into town to pick up Art. We were heading off to Shoreditch to meet up with Damian Allsop. Art and Damian have been mutual admirers at a distance, and it was a real meeting of minds once they started chatting. All taking place in the unlikely location of Hoxton Square – a trendy if slightly crusty part of London, famous for kicking off the rise of the Old Street – Shoreditch area as the hip new centre of London nightlife. (Anyone remember the Blue Note or Bass Clef?)

The talk was of flavour and balance, techniques and science, and whether it was possible to make ganaches with deuterium oxide – heavy water. Quite safe, but probably outside of the average chocolatiers budget at a mere $700 per kilo. Now that would be taking molecular gastronomy to a whole new level.

In the afternoon sun under the half-shade of Hoxton Square trees we tried first the Amano range of bars, then worked our way through Damian’s latest collection. No one would have guessed that amongst the chilled out Hoxton crowd idling the afternoon by in the square, two of the best trans-atlantic chocolate brains were busy bonding and comparing notes.

Damian had appointments to attend to, so we said our farewells and wandered down to Spitalfields market, which was already closed for the day. I hadn’t been down their since the refurbishment was finished. A very sad sight with two thirds of the old market gone, and all the atmosphere. Completely different to when Steve and I ran a Seventypercent stall there a few times when we first started. An old friend lost to gleaming steel and glass.

Valrhona sorbet in the Tate Modern

So instead we took a bus along Fleet Street to Waterloo and walked along the Thames looking for a good restaurant. The Oxo Tower  Restaurant was full, so we made our way to the slightly less up-market Tate Modern Restaurant. The food was fair, the view and sunset well worthwhile. When it came to dessert we contemplated the chocolate sorbet with some reticance.

A lot of UK restaurants – even top notch ones – often let themselves down by using lower grade chocolate for their pattiserie. We enquired though, and the answer came back as ‘Valrhona 70%’ – so Guanaja or Tropillia. I gave it a go, and it was up to scratch if a little sweet. A worthy destination on the London chocolate path.

The next day we’d arranged to go down to see William Curley in his Richmond shop. We arrived late afternoon and spent a fabulous few hours in William’s upstairs kitchen, tasting some of the new creations William is preparing for the new Pimlico shop. Art, William and Matt really are all on the same wavelength, and you could see that William and Art shared the same creative passion for quality first, quantity second.

Now it’s back to the frantic preparations for the Awards ceremony, which promises to be the big and best yet.