William Curley's new shop, Ebury Street, Pimlico, London

It’s taken quite a while, but it would be hard to argue that it wasn’t worth the wait.

William and Suzue Curley finally opened their second London store this week in Pimlico – at the second attempt, following the early closure of their first Central London venture in Mayfair.

Now Britain’s Best Chocolatier (as voted by the Academy of Chocolate for the last three years running) is back in a bigger and better flagship store to supplement their original Richmond shop, that could only be described as – ‘fabulous’.

Inside the new William Curley shop

More like a chocolate emporium than a mere shop, the Pimlico Road store is probably the largest chocolate shop in London.

The new shop features not only the full range of William Curley fresh patisserie and chocolates, but also a dessert and drinks bar, late night opening with licensing, exotically decorated seating areas and an upmarket but laid back feel.

The shop certainly has an air of plush luxury, but is not at all intimidating to enter.

Some top-end chocolatier boutiques can make you feel like an intruder into a much loftier world, where actually you only came in to buy some chocolates. (I couldn’t level that accusation at any of the current crop of London stores though).

Curley’s new shop keeps it friendly while layering on the style, creating a space you want to hang around in, not just dive into for a few minutes for a quick shop.

Serving from the new limestone counter

The design has the usual Curley Japanese and French influence, this time with a little ‘cacao’ thrown in. One wall is covered with cacao sack style hessian, on which is printed the names of famous cacao origin countries. (Along with the odd Japanese city, which can be spotted by the eagle-eyed – it had to be pointed out to me.)

The front seating area features a beautiful gold and black mural, creating a cosy sit down area ideal for impressing a date with champagne and chocolates, while at the back of the shop there is more seating, great for long chats and business meetings.

Brownies made with Amedei chocolate for just £2 a go

Though you might be shopping in a heavenly chocolate environment, Curley’s prices are fair and decent and there’s no sense of products being given orbital price tags just to make them appear somehow luxurious.

It would of course be possible to leave the shop with a much dented credit card, but many small items can be had for a few pounds. Often these are priced for barely more than you’d pay in a high street chain, for something that is on the face of it a similar item.

The quality is, of course, on a different planet. Sublime brownies for a mere £2 a go are just one example.

As well as the new shop, Curley also has new bags and new packaging for solid and filled bars, which make them just a bit more gift-worthy.

There’s also a new drinks menu and a few new patisserie items available, including “Citrus entremet” – layers of hazelnut sponge, lemon ganache, chocolate sponge and dark chocolate mousse accompanied by lemon curd.

The entremet was so good, I’d taken a few bites before realising I really should take a photo. The aftertaste was excellent and really lingered.

Citrus entremet, too good to resist

Congratulations go to William and Suzue – Ebury Street is a real acheivement and once again the Curley’s have ‘raised the bar’ for the London chocolate scene.

This can only be a good thing as London takes another step forward to becoming one of the leading fine chocolate centres in the world.

Certainly well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Nearest tube: Sloane Square, or Victoria if you don’t mind a walk or a short bus journey on the 211. Pimlico station is actually some distance away.

Info

William Curley
198 Ebury Street
London
SW1W 8UN

Tel. 020 7730 5522

Opening Hours:

Monday to Saturday 9:30 – 18:30
(Coming soon: Monday to Thursday 9:30 – 10:00pm)
Sunday 10:30 – 18:00

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Warm Amedei '9' chocolate tart with raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream

As if a visit to Paul A Young’s last Friday wasn’t enough, in the afternoon I went along to a demo given by William Curley for Amedei at Westmintser Kingsway College. This was an event to promote Amedei’s couverture for chefs, organised by new Amedei catering distributor Wild Harvest,  at the College’s Hospitality centre in London’s Victoria.

For those of you who don’t know, William and his wife Suzue are rapidly becoming famous as London’s leading chocolatier couple. They also have a lovely spanking new website (as I only just noticed.) William has developed a close relationship with Amedei and now exclusively uses Amedei chocolate. Very little Amedei is used by chefs in the UK though, and Wild Harvest are hoping to change this, through a series of four demos by William, extolling the virtues of Amedei to an audience of chefs and students.

Also present was Amedei’s Export Manager Karin Mausse, who gave us an introduction to Amedei while William’s team served us hot chocolate.

Live dessert demo

Tempering chocolate

Once William got started with the main demo we were treated to our first dessert, a classic warm baked chocolate tart made with Amedei ’9′ – their 75% ‘heirloom’ blend – and served with raspberry sauce and William’s vanilla ice cream. This was familiar territory, as I’ve tried this small delight not a few times before. William demoed making the filling, then a batch of tarts was freshly baked and served.

Next we were treated to a tempering master-class as William proceeded to temper a batch of Amedei 65% by hand, then create a range of shiney chocolate decorations and wafer thin slivers and curls, making the whole process look way too easy. These were used as decorations and ingredients for the desserts still to come.

Chocolate mille feuille

Making chocolate sticks from freshly tempered Amedei chocolate

Chocolate mille feuille was the next treat to be constructed before our eyes. This is made up of  layers of nutty dacquoise (nut enriched meringue), wafer feuillentine biscuits  and piped stripes of chocolate and Toscano Nut Brown crème. This last element is a nut enriched ganache, made with a new product from Amedei – essentially a gianduja, though not by name.

Thin rectangles and curls of shiny, freshly tempered chocolate topped the layers off, and the whole ensemble was served to us in half-size samples with I think mandarin and muscavado ice cream. I should say that at this stage I was getting rather full and overwhelmed with chocolate from the whole day – but this simply wouldn’t be true. This was all just too good to turn down.

What made this demo session particularly interesting – for a mere amateur like myself – was the level of technical information we were treated to during the afternoon, much more than I’m used to at consumer oriented events, such as when William has worked with us at Seventypercent tastings.

Chocolate fondant, and making sea-salt caramels look all too easy

Chocolate fondant with cherry compote and pistachio ice cream (photo: William Curley)

After a short break, William poured chocolate into moulds ready to make sea salt caramels, knocking and tapping away at the filled moulds to ensure there were no trapped air bubbles, before pouring out the excess chocolate. Next he finished off the desserts for the afternoon by making a chocolate fondant (a sponge really) with ganache centre, which was served to us with cherry compote and pistachio ice cream.

As we ate the last dessert, William poured sea salt caramel mix into the moulds made only moments before, then capped these. After a little cooling these were knocked out and we were soon eating William Curley sea-salt caramels, made all too easily if you ask me – or any of the mere mortals out there who struggle endlessly to get their tempering and moulding to behave.

All in all it was a privilege to see William and his team in action – and cater for forty of us in the audience at the same time.

And hopefully some chefs out there will have been bitten by the Amedei bug and we’ll see a few more establishments move up from standard Belgian type couverture to something created with a great deal more care.

Info

William Curley
10 Paved Court,
Richmond,
Surrey,
TW9 1LZ
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 3002
www: www.williamcurley.co.uk

Amedei
www: www.amedei.com

Buy Amedei catering supplies at Wild Harvest Ltd:  +44 (0)207 498 53 97

Buy Amedei retail products online at King’s Fine Foods

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Which would you choose? Posh pecan for the price of a Pret baguette * or a Walnut Whip for the cost of a bag of Walkers ** crisps ***?

Yesterday morning I went along to see what Paul A Young has going on at the moment, and as was treated to the usual array of surprises, treats and flavour experiments you can expect from Paul.

As well as Paul’s latest bonbon flavours, I also got to try Paul’s interpretation of a high street confectionary classic and took a peek at his all chocolate ice cream range. Paul’s other big news is the publication of his forthcoming book in October this year, more of which later.

Nut whip reimagined

Most of us in the UK fine chocolate world grew up on what we would now call confectionery. Not that there was much choice if you were into chocolate. Now there’s much better chocolate available and a public much more willing to consider quality, it’s interesting to go back and try to recreate some of those early experiences we once has such a connection with.

Paul has attempted this with his Pecan Mallow, inspired by Nestlé’s famous Walnut Whip (though that’s my interpretation of Paul’s Pecan Mallow, not a claim Paul is trying to make in any way.)

The beautiful looking result contains a freshly made white mallow, hand made with sugar, egg white, vanilla and gelatine. (Paul was filling the rounded shells when I arrived.) The coating is Valrhona Caraïbe 66% dark and inside at the top there’s a dollop of sea-salted caramel. On the top is a fine Iranian pecan. The mallow is a pleasure to eat, very munchable and would serve well as a very special treat or gift. The texture is genuine soft marsh-mallow and of course great chocolate. Gorgeous.

Nestlé’s Walnut Whip – once the pride of the old Rowntree’s brand – is of course much much cheaper. You certainly get a lot more ingredients for your money though. The chocolate shell is milk and contains whey, vegetable and butter fat and flavouring, as well as some cocoa mass. Sugar is listed first in the milk chocolate list, meaning it is the largest content, and is second largest overall. So mainly sugar then.

I’ve no doubt that Paul’s Pecan Mallow is a sugar heavy recipe, but the Walnut Whip seems to be mostly sugar, fat and flavouring. The inside is brilliant white and looks like and has the texture of wall filler. Flavourwise it’s pretty sweet and cloying, with a strange mechanical background flavour. The aftertaste was better than expected – mostly sugar and baked milk chocolate. The walnut also had a very bitter after taste.

* Posh baguette from UK upmarket sandwich chain, Pret a Manger, £3.50
** Walkers crisps – up to 55p a packer in some stores.
*** crisps – what we in the UK call ‘chips’, i.e. bags of thin sliced fried potatoes. ‘Chips’ to us are what you might call ‘fries’!

Adventures with Chocolate – book

Adventures with Chocolate, Paul A Young, published October 2009

Paul’s first book is out in the autumn, and you can get a sneak preview in the shop in the form of an eight page mock up. The book will feature tasting tables and notes from Paul, chocolate making tips and a wealth of recipes. Will Paul reveal his famous brownie recipe though? You’ll have to wait until October 2009 to find out!

The book can be pre-ordered now in Paul’s shops for a discount of £4.00 over the cover price of £16.99. The shop copies will be signed by Paul of course. Pre-orders will be available through outlets such as Amazon in the near future, we’ll keep you informed.

New flavours

Counter display at Paul A Young's Camden Passage shop

About half of Paul’s bonbon range is seasonal, so there’s always something new to try. Here are just a few of this season’s offerings.

Cheese and chocolate is always interesting territory, and Paul’s Port and Stilton truffle is a locally famous example, though not a big hit with me personally. ‘Goats Cheese with Lemon and Rosemary‘ is another matter though. I was expecting something with quite a cheesy tangue and that the rosemary might be overpower the other flavours, as it so often can. Inside the dark coating was a white chocolate ganache with a delicate lemon flavour in perfect balance with the cheese and herb. Weirdly I had a craving for lemon curd while shopping this morning, and this chocolate exactly fulfilled that urge, in a much less sweet cloying way than the real thing.

‘Fresh coconut and stem ginger‘ on the other hand has a sparkling shiny coating of white and cream coloured cocoa butter on a dodecahedral mould. Inside is a soft ganache delivering a ginger hit followed by subtle coconut. The end was a little bitter though and I would have preferred a fruitier dark chocolate for balance.

There is a very light filling at the centre of the flat ‘Jasmin flower and lemongrass’ ganache, which is decorated with coloured speckles. This bonbon has quite a savoury flavour, is low on cream and delicately sweet. The flavours interplay quite subtly creating a ginger note and no bitterness. Lingers nicely,

More lemon now with ‘Pepper mint and lemon ganache‘. Interesting choice and a very runny dark filling, simple straightforward flavours that might be found in a high street collection box, but made with quality ingredients. This shouldn’t work but just about does – the lemon stops the mint being too strong or bitter (as fresh mint sometimes can be), adding freshness without being consciously citric.

The gold sprayed ‘Peanut praline‘ milk chocolate dome contains peanut praline made from peanut paste. This is pretty yummy and sweet though I’d personally prefer more of a punchy fresh peanut flavour.

I finished off with an oldie. ‘Pimms cocktail‘ is one of Paul’s classics and comes with fresh cucumber, strawberry and mint. This round truffle has a full flavour that delivers exactly as advertised, and if anything has improved since Paul first made, now with a more delicate balance of flavours.

Paul’s other new summer flavours are: ‘Blood Peach‘, ‘Mandarin Caramel‘ and ‘Sake and fennel seed‘. I also took away a fabulous but ultimately extremely dangerous ‘Sea-salted caramel‘ bar. This is just too plain delicious and I consumed most of it in one go after dinner last night. Be warned!

Chocolate ice cream

Paul pours a liquid chocolate topping on to a chocolate sorbet

Summer is arriving and most chocolatiers are turning to ice cream as a summer alternative to keep customers flowing into their shops. Unlike most, Paul is sticking strictly to chocolate flavours, keeping the emphasis of the shop solidly on chocolate. The flavour range includes: Sea-salted caramel with 70% dark chocolate, Dark chocolate sorbet, Amedei white chocolate and pistachio, Double chocolate brownie and 70% Valrhona dark chocolate.

I tried the water based and dairy free Chocolate sorbet, topped with nibs and Valrhona dark Pearls and liquid chocolate. Absolute heaven and not too heavy. Will be great for hot summer afternoons, if we ever get any!

Chocolate sorbet up close

Info

Shops:

Camden Passage, Islington
33 Camden Passage, Islington
London N1 8EA
Tel: +44 (0)20 7424 5750

The Royal Exchange, Bank
20 Royal Exchange, Threadneedle
Street, London EC3V 3LP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7929 7007

Website: www.paulayoung.co.uk

Book: Adventures with Chocolate by Paul A Young, Kyle Cathie, London, published October 2009 £16.99, pre-order signed copies from the shops for £12.99.

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Melt lollipops

Having dashed round the Real Food Festival and caught up with a few chocolate friends, I moved on to Notting Hill chocolatier Melt to catch up with their latest news and products.

To celebrate the onset of summer, the ever inventive Melt have a special colourful collection of round chocolates, which are made in small daily batches and designed by Melt chocolatier Chika Watanabe.

Butterfly collection

The butterfly collection

Lychee and strawberry is a soft fondant with a flavour delicately dominated by the lychee – I mostly get the strawberry in the nose. The delicacy is in contrast to the dark chocolate used, which is quite tart – I suspect Santander 70%. I’m not usually a fondent fan, but this is high on fruit, light and not too sweet (maybe it’s more of a white chocolate ganache?)

I like yuzu – a small Japanese citrus with a flavour between grapefruit and mandarin, having tried ganaches from William Curley and bars by Laurent Gerbaud. Adding rosemary to this is a bold move, which just about works, though it’s a fine line adding that herbal note to citrus. At first I found it off and a little shocking, but got more used to it by the second piece. Reminds me of a fruit tea, good fruity flavour but slightly tannic. Lingers well. Careful biting into this as it can squidge a bit.

Marzipan and cherry kirsch is not exactly a summer flavour, but smells fruity and light. This is well balanced and marzipan is not at all heavy. Neither flavour would be my favourite, but together the combination is quite munchable.

I guess you can’t make a summer collection all fruit, but ginger seems to suggest a wintry offering rather than summer days. This is a straight-forward milk ganache (Jivara?), and is suitably light. The ginger flavour seems more like dried powdered than fresh, but this is not necessarily a negative and I could be wrong.

Coffee cardamom seems like another winter flavour, and is a similar milk ganache. After an initial coffee hit, I find this a little sweet, but then I might be expected to say that. The cardamom is just about there and the after taste is not so strong. I preferred the ginger though.

Lychee and strawberry and the marzipan are my favourites of the collection. I would have liked to have seen a couple more summer flavours in there, but this is definitely a nice set of chocolates to check out and should go down well at early summer dinner parties.

Ice cream

Ice cream flavours

Melt also have a new ice cream range, and have an inventive display of teacups just inside the shop to illustrate the flavour range. The ice cream is made with an unusual technique – the ingredients are frozen down to -20c, then a gold bladed blender creates a light sorbet-like texture in a mere 20 seconds.

The chocolate flavour was made with Santander Colombian origin, which did it’s job, and the vanilla was pretty good, but the strawberry was a clear winner for me, and will go down a treat on sunny days in Ledbury Road. (Blustery cold winds were blowing today though, not quite so conducive.)

Limited edition bars

New bars

So I have here no. 77 of 500 dark bars made with Felchlin‘s Cru Savage 68% from Bolivian beans. This is said by Felchlin to be made from wild cacao, but I always take such claims with a pinch of salt. The source is no doubt obscure and hard to reach (and looks beautiful, I want to visit), but it’s still cared for and maintained by the locals, so ‘wild’ is perhaps not quite the right word.

The chocolate is sweet, with mild roasted hazelnut notes, very slightly tannic, creamy and a light top. (Tiny hints of cranberries.) Aftertaste is coffee and there is some sourness. Cru Savage is a good eating chocolate, not spectacular but it would be on my eating list. Melt have done a good job with the remelting and tempering – you wouldn’t think it, but it’s quite possible to destroy a good chocolate at this stage.

I also got to try a 50% cocoa solids single plantation Madagascar bar, which means it must be Cluizel Mangaro. I got a rather off-putting parafin note in the nose, which was still present in the initial taste. I’m not sure if that’s something that’s come in from Melt’s re-working or it’s just an effect of Cluizel’s milk process, which is always quite yoghurty. (A kind of very up-market Hershey’s kiss.)

Given the recent mixed batches we’ve seen of Mangaro, this could also be an interaction with the beans and possibly over-roasting. Once past this we’re into milky creaminess. Not everyone like’s Cluizel’s milk style, but if you’re a fan, you’ll find this one of the better milk’s.

Info

Melt
59 Ledbury Road
Notting Hill
London
W11 2AA
Mon-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 11am-4pm

Tel: +44 (0)20 7727 5030
Web:  www.meltchocolates.com

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If the attendance of the opening night party is anything to go by, the shop should prove very popular – it was actually hard to move around, despite the spacious lower ‘dessert bar’ area. This features an open kitchen where an à la carte menu of desserts are prepared to order, a fantastic concept new to the UK.

So popular, in fact, it was hard to even get close enough to photograph, as you can see in this shot. The dessert bar is somewhere down there!

I hope to write about a more full and detailed visit to the dessert bar in calmer circumstances soon. Meanwhile there was plenty of the excellent pastries and chocolates we are used to from the Richmond shop – on offer in the substantial display cabinets, and now also available in William’s concession in the new John Lewis food hall in Oxford Street.

There’s one more Chocolate Society shop to convert into a William Curley establishment (the Belgravia branch), which will leave William with four outlets, making a great contribution to the rise of London as a centre for fine chocolate. It’s also good news that it will now be a lot easier for chocolate aficionados to sample Curley’s offering without trekking all the way down to Richmond.

I think the Mayfair shop will become a real chocolate destination, and though you’re likely to come away with a somewhat lighter wallet, there are some good value items to be had.

The loaf cakes in particular are a snip at only £9 for a full size cake, which you could easily remove the wrapping from and claim as your own lovingly hand baked creation for the end of a dinner party. Catch them while you can!

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Great news for all you City types in need of some decent chocolates. Apparently some customers have been travelling up to Angel during their lunchtime to stock up, well, things just got a lot easier!

I think the shop will have a great old time feel when it’s finished, with some of the original fittings still in existence, and one of the windiest, longest spiral staircases I’ve seen (in a shop, anyway!)

Keeping up quality when you open your second shop is always a challenge, but I’m assured Paul will be running up and down the Northern Line to keep things in order. The Eastern part of the London has been a bit of a fine chocolate desert until now, with only chains on offer, so this is a big step forward. I’ve a feeling that some of you who might have been frequenting some of the trendy chain shops in the area are about to find out what you’ve been missing.

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Marc will be at F&M during Chocolate Week for sampling of his new creations.

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That’s not to say the City doesn’t have its share of fancy looking chocolate shops claiming to the ‘the best’, but this is just not the same as fresh, hand made bonbons made with decent chocolate by a chocolatier you can actually talk to in the shop. If you don’t believe me, you just have to try them for yourselves, which from early October you’ll have the chance to if you work (or live) near The Royal Exchange, just opposite the Bank of England, nearest tube station Bank.

Meanwhile, Paul has just launched his autumn collection, including apricot, star anise and pine nut, Guatamalan coffee bean and pear and cinnamon chocolates, stem ginger and cardamom brownies (soggy and rich enough to be puddings) and an autumn spices bar made with cinnamon leaf, cinnamon bark, nutmeg and cardamom. The bar is available in milk or dark and we’ll be featuring the dark bar in our September 2007 Club edition.

Paul has also hooked up with Glenmorangie, the second best-selling single malt whisky in the world, who have just undergone a relaunch and rebranding, along with controversial new cognac style bottles. Catch Paul’s whisky caramel truffle made with Glenmorangie’s new 10 year old single malt. Sounds like an ideal winter combination. (If you’re launching a new 10 year old whisky, does that mean you have to plan ahead 10 years?)

Paul also tells us that port and stilton truffles and sea salted caramels are his current best sellers. It’ll be interesting to see if the City crowd have different preferences when the new shop opens. We’ll bring you a full report from the launch party, assuming our invite is in the post that is!

For more information about Paul’s chocolates and location of the shops, visit the website: Paul A Young Fine Chocolates.

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We now have a good handful of world class chocolatiers, growing in size and reputation, helping to place London squarely on the world chocolate map and turn the city into a real chocolate destination. The days of London being looked down upon as an over-sweetened, over packaged, over-sized and artificially flavoured long life giant bonbon are hopefully passing. (Though there still plenty of examples of these to found on every high street).

William Curley has taken over the Chocolate Society and will soon have a mini-chain of shops, Paul A Young will soon be expanding down from Islington into the financial hear of the City, cleaning up the east side, and we hear rumours of a new Rococo shop coming soon. The great news is that fine chocolate lovers from all over London no longer have to travel miles to obtain excellent, fresh, chocolates. The more London becomes known as a centre of excellence, the more new chocolatiers it will attract, and we’re all in favour of that.

To help shout out this news, I’ve started this little column which will bring tidbits of news and gossip from the London scene.

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