The Bite Magazine - Summer 2019 - Issue 25

bite chocolate Their Forever Expanding World I t seems that it wasn’t enough for Hotel Chocolat to tantalise our tastebuds with their mouthwatering range of chocolate since they began selling online in 1993 and opened their first shop in 2004. As a confectionery brand that has continued to thrive since then, there is always room for expansion with great new ideas. After all the founders Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris became cocoa farmers in 2006 when they bought Rabot Estate, a beautiful 250-year-old cocoa plantation in Saint Lucia.They then opened Hotel Choc- olat’s first cafe in London’s Borough Market serving a range of innovative cocoa-centred food and drinks. They went on to open Boucan, a luxury hotel, restaurant and spa on the plantation in 2011 to huge acclaim, with reports of people flying from New York just for the food.The following year saw them voted the UK’s ‘most advocated’ British brand and the year after that, London was chosen as the home of their restaurant Rabot 1745. That same year, their resident chocolatiers started making chocolate fresh in their cocoa bar- cafés. And in 2014, the School of Chocolate at Cocoa Vaults opened in Covent Garden while Copenhagen saw the launch of two brand new stores. Beside launching a cookbook called A New Way of Cooking with Chocolate in 2015 that gave a unique insight into the award-winning dishes from their restaurants and allowed people to make them at home, Hotel Chocolat also opened the School of Chocolate in their Copenhagen City store, which offered new chocolate adventures and experiences in Denmark as well as their first West End store on Regent Street. Not stopping there, they went on to indulge in alco- holic beverages, beauty products and an in-home drinking chocolate system.