The end of Hotel Chocolat.

[Pasithean]

Looks like their selling out to mars. 😭😭🙈🤮

please don’t change it.

Definitely no expert, just an enthusiastic but very fussy consumer @LeavesinAutumn . Charbonnel et Walker are good, but not pretty IMO. I dislike chocolate and mint combos, so that rules out a lot. Greene & Black is okay for bar chocolate. I'm ridiculously partial to peanut butter KitKits too. But for posh chocs after a meal, it's all about one or two really good ones. Pierre Marcolini, which are Belgian. After that, I reckon Hobbs are hard to beat for UK made. Everyday, for neighbour favours etc, buy a big box of Celebrations and don't overthink it.

I often buy it in the sale, I like most chocolate though, I wouldn't pay full price.

Your comments reminds me of the time we brought a bottle of Remy Martin Napoleon brandy home for my parents who were not great drinkers. My mother used it for the Christmas cakes because she didn't think it was as good as Martell as she'd never heard of it! My brother took her into town to see it on sale, the cakes were good though!
This thread is really about virtual signalling of how superior 'my' taste buds are, personally I love HC, I was given Audrey but didn't like it, I don't like Belgian chocolate either, it's all a matter of personal taste.

Gutted, I love their chocolate, won’t be the same

@Papyrophile it was your "they don't rely on ganache" and I think it was you re the bite with butter cream and bendy with palm oil.

I'm so pissed off with crap choclate. I'm looking at hobbs and the other one.

They're OK. They're a bit disappointing because MN told me, many many times that they were the best chocolates in the world, streets ahead of anything else available, but they're very similiar to HC.

It would be interesting to subject those who say that HC is overpriced nasty rubbish and Audrey's are much nicer to blind tasting.

It would also have been interesting to see what MN thought of the ingredients label with palm oil galore, if I'd not already shown it was from Audrey's.

I'm sorry you're reading this as oneupmanship @JudgeJ . I hoped my opinions (and they are only that) might help people decide what they buy, like reading a taste test in your newspaper on tinned tomatoes.

It will probably be similar to how Ben and Jerrys is part of Unilever, I don't think the icecream changed

To be fair it could be in just one or two types of choclate rather than used in all of it like other brands.. I may email to ask them..

I’m still heartbroken at what was done to Cadburys. Why take an iconic brand and ruin it? And why wasn’t it stipulated in the sale
that they couldn’t change the recipe? I still fantasise about them returning to the original recipe one day

@Solongnow ... Ben and Jerry's icecream has changed enormously since Unilever bought the company. I used to buy a cone in NYC from the two or three stores they had, when the flavourings you wanted were chopped into perfect plain vanilla icecream churned in the back. Then, it was made fresh daily, from real dairy products. Now it's not the same. You cannot really scale up products to global industry and expect the taste to be the same.

@WomensRightsRenegade same... I still feel upset.

What's worse is that the younger generations have never had anything different so they don't realise what it was

@Papyrophile I've certainly enjoyed your critique and look forward to trying hobbs.

Fingers crossed that you don't think I'm wrong!

One amazing brand I've not seen mentioned yet is Guittard.

Tell us more @VanityDiesHard ... you might have a captive chocophile audience to promote your cause. What do they do well?

I’m astounded Chococo has only been mentioned once - superior to every other brand I’ve tried (and I’ve had many) and very good ethics. Someone mentioned a lemon flavour - Chococo have an amazing one.

I’ve RTFT in the hope of hearing about something amazing - huge thanks to the pp who shared both prices and ingredients to save me bothering with Audrey’s.

They are a US company, San Francisco based. They focus on the catering industry. You can buy their milk and dark chips in Lakeland and they are amazing. I never get around to baking with them, I just eat them by the handful! They also do bars but they are harder to come by in this country.

I tried one chocolate company that was mentioned on MN once, and it's been a go-to for treat orders ever since. As I don't see in mentioned on this thread I thought give it a name check for fellow chocolate lovers https://www.laudenchocolate.com/

Never liked it, much prefer Cadburys

@VanityDiesHard I think you had me ordering Guittard when you mentioned eating chocolate chips by the handful 😄

I don’t hate HC by the way - but I couldn’t name an individual chocolate (or selection box) I love now, so they don’t hit the mark like they used to. I liked the experimental chocolate subscription where they sent unusual flavours each time but they stopped that.

I had some really nice ones from Friars, Paul A Young (they often have fresh centres so don't always keep that long) and Leonides.

Some HC chocolate does seem waxy to me but I like the different flavours, I think it varies.

Day to day I like Lindt (Swiss luxury), G&B, Tony's.

The only problem with Paul A Young is that every time you go away from his store, you take a piece of him with you.

@Papyrophile is there a chocophile corner on MN? I stumbled on this thread and feel I need regular suggestions - life’s pretty shit right now and chocolate is what keeps me going some days (and everyone else in my house is happy with cheap stuff so good stuff is safe!).