The Bite Magazine Issue 17

Jada Brookes discovers how Paul A Young, a former head pastry chef became an award-winning chocolatier. I t’s extremely hard passing a Paul A Young confectionery shop without admiring the rows and rows of scrumptious chocolate pieces that you can literally feel melting in your mouth from just looking at them. This is probably done on purpose to entice potential shoppers into its shops to satisfy their love for delicious and satis- fying chocolate where they can hide away somewhere and enjoy the richness of Paul A Young’s sweet nothings. Another thing you may notice when you look at the website is that there are no images or descriptions of his products, so if you wish to stare longingly hard at his choc- olate goodies before you decide to buy, you just have to go out and visit one of his shops in central London. If you had told Paul, founder of his namesake chocolatier brand, years ago that he would one day be working with chocolate, he would never have believed you. After studying hotel catering and management at New College Durham and Leeds Metropolitan University, Paul quickly worked through the ranks of a restaurant kitchen to the position of head pastry chef for Marco Pierre White at Quo Vadis and Criterion and in food development for retailers such as Sainsbury’s, and TV. It wasn’t until he ran a desserts company that he realised chocolate could be his future. He told Sainsbury’s Magazine,“I went to Paris, to all the places that sold great chocolate and realised [that] London had no fresh chocolates. There were pralines, Cham- pagne truffles, [and] classic truffles – the same wherever you went. Everything was reserved, and not how I, as a purist, believed it could be. That’s how it all started, just from a natural progression and a gap in the market.” Paul started making chocolate for Chantal Coady at Rococo and Charbon- nel et Walker but it wasn’t until he had opened his first shop in Camden Passage in Islington, London in 2006 that he was able to see if “customers were open to a very new style of chocolate with no glucose, no sorbitol, no hydrogenated fats, [and] no preservatives. I was warned there would be wastage as nobody had really tried it before.” It was after his salted caramel won gold at The Academy of Chocolate Awards in 2011 that the phone really started ringing. “Now we’ve got three shops and my team has grown from two to thirty. We make chocolates every day and still temper every single piece of chocolate by hand – we have no machinery and we don’t add anything artificial… My chocolates are expensive because we make them by hand and only use the best ingredients.” Inspiration for his varieties of chocolates range from drinks – “I love how complex blending a cocktail can be – combining bitter, sweet and sour” to watching Rick Stein’s TV series about India in which “he talked about ingredients and things that I’ve never used in chocolate, a variety of chillies and other spices. That’s inspired me mainly because of the colours, aromas and textures – flavour doesn’t always come first, which surprises a lot of people.With chocolate, the last thing you do is taste it.” Paul admits he doesn’t have a particular formula and some of the ideas come from chatting with the team but he is inspired by the seasons and tries to use seasonal ingredients as much as possible. Although he makes what could be described as organic chocolate, Paul still likes to indulge in ‘mainstream chocolate’ like Thorntons (“because my grandma used to buy them for me when I was little”) for enjoyment and also eats “a lot of my own chocolate and there are times when I think, ‘I can’t eat any more’ but then the next day comes, and my craving is back!” His first book ‘Adventures with Chocolate’ won theWorld’s Best Choc- olate Book at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards in Paris, was shortlisted for the Andre Simon Award and included in the Independent’s Top 50 cookbooks. Paul has appeared on TV in the UK on pro- grammes such as This Morning and Sunday Brunch, The Apprentice, Junior MasterChef, and Paul Hollywood’s Pies and Puds, and in the U.S. on The Nate Berkus Show and The Today Show. In 2014, he was named Outstanding British Chocolatier by the International Chocolate Awards. This autumn/winter season, Paul A Young has created a collection of deli- cious chocolates in the form of Almond Praline and Sesame Tahini, mixed with Valrhona 66% Caribbean dark choco- late and Maldon sea salt sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds; Fig and Hazelnut, with Guittard 45% milk chocolate mixed with dried figs and toasted hazelnuts; Pear, Walnut and Armagnac, with pear puree, stilton cheese, toasted walnuts and Guittard 45% milk chocolate ganache infused with Armagnac; Bramble and Goats Cheese, a fusion of Bramble puree, goats cheese and Valrhona white chocolate ganache with organic rosemary oil and coated in Duffy’s 65% Dominican Republic dark chocolate; Ginger Parkin, inspired by a classic cake fromYorkshire with ginger cake and puree, Chinese stem ginger and Guittard 45% milk chocolate ganache, sprinkled with toasted oats; and Stout Beer and Honey, with Weird Beard Double Perle Stout blended with Valrhona 64% Dominican Republic chocolate and Paul AYoung’s famous Sea Salted Caramel and Greek Honey. For chocolate enthusiasts, Paul A Young offers a series of workshops including festive intermediate chocolate making, chocolate tasting and making, brownie baking and tasting, and sea salted caramel classes where you can learn how to make the perfect confectionaries. Paul A Young’s London shops can be found in The Royal Exchange in Bank; Camden Passage in Islington and Wardour Street in Soho, all in London. www.paulayoung.co.uk bite chocolate