To return Heston Blumenthal's utterly disgusting chocolates to Waitrose?

[EmilyGilmore]

A few days ago I bought a box of Heston Bloomingdisgustinthal's chocolates in Waitrose. I ONLY bought them because I thought they were on offer at £3.49 and that seemed a reasonable price for a smallish box of 15 chocs. It turns out the offer was for the teeny tiny box of 5 not the 15 which I paid £13.50(!!!!!!) for I didn't realise till I got home, unpacked the bags and DH had already opened the box, eaten two and declared them "horrible".

I have since eaten 4 more, to give the guy a chance...but no, they are truly disgusting. Rosemary and thyme praline anyone?

WIBU to attempt to return them to Waitrose? Would I get a refund do you think? I have chucked the receipt unfortunately.

Ugh, I need a Walnut Whip now just to get the taste out of my mouth.

1. you have opened them 2. you have no receipt

So no you should not return them.

The mince pies with pine sugar and the xmas pudding with a clemantine in the middle are off the chain! Rosemary and thyme prailine sounds a little odd though.

Is off the chain good or bad? I've just had a look and it seems the pine minced pies have been binned this year and been replaced with spiced ones.

Last year Heston's whole stollen cake with clementine sugar was fabulous. They aren't making it this year, and I'm so sad about it. I've had to buy one from M and S which would ordinarily have been fine, but nothing will stand up to comparison with Heston's!

That sounds delicious, I love stollen too.

I absolutely adore the loo cleaner mince pies. Feel free to send any half-eaten boxes of them my way.

I think it's a bit cheeky but you're likely to get a refund from Waitrose if a) you've eaten less than half b) you can say "I hated them" with a straight face. Supermarkets do this on their own brand stuff all the time.

I love both sizes of HB's Xmas pud, and the Black Forest bar thing. The smoked salmon was OK but not spectacular. The banana flavour baked Alaska thing was toecurlingly sweet but I bought it cut price for a kids party so that was fine. I'm going to keep an eye out for the chocs in the Ocado January sale.

I've been to the Fat Duck and Dinner and they were absolute perfection....as they should be at those prices.

Has anyone tried his bakewell flavoured vodka.
Sounds bloody lovely. Bet it's grim!

Those pine mince pies were utterly, utterly vile - so awful that I was convinced the green stuff on the top was some sort of mould and had to check the sell by date [vom]

oooh bakewell vodka sounds amazing!

Is off the chain good or bad?

Most definately good!

We tried these chocolates and they were indeed shite. I wish we'd taken them back but we threw them away instead.

We did enjoy his Christmas pudding last year though, the one with the orange in the middle. It was scrumptious.

I have chocolates with parmesan on before. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

I couldn't take something back because I didn't like the taste, I'd feel to cheeky. Well done if you do though.

Ex-Waitrose employee here. They'll refund it no quibbles. They sound horrible.

Never eaten them but heard alot of patients who either throw them or took them back as thought they off. Just asked dh who also said colleagues said they tasted awful.

I would argue that if you can resist eating any chocolates until you get round to returning them, they can't be all that.

Therefore yanbu. And deserve a refund.

Love Waitrose generally but there is the pretentious side that I don't like at all. The Heston range is part of this, as is the magazine and the Pippa Middleton contributions, it's not as if this stuff is much good IMO.

Perhaps the time has come for Waitrose to move away from celebrity endorsement and concentrate on their quality, lovely shopping environments and excellent service at the best price they can deliver.

Didn't it say on the box what the flavours were?

I worked on the tills in Sainsburys as a teenager. I once saw a lady take a cooked chicken carcass (i.e. all the chicken had been eaten) to customer service and complain that it had been chewy. She was given a refund!

on that basis I think OP yanbu, at least you have some left!

OP -I would definitely take them back, they will want to know that some people think they taste disgusting and will probably give you a refund for your feedback if for nothing else

Tweet Waitrose, they'll refund you immediately

If they are the same ones as last year, they are pretty terrible and got bad reviews on Ocado. I agree that they tasted as if they had gone off and felt terrible for giving them to a few people (before I had tried them) as presents.

Im going to have to try these Heston chocolates. Rosemary and Thyme sounds great in a dark choc. Can't stand over sweetened chocolate bars.