Luxury chocolatier and retailer Hotel Chocolat is introducing eight new bakery items to four of its key stores with cafés across North and West Yorkshire.
The hand-baked items include sweet treats such as flaky Chocolatines, loaded brownies, banana bread, and carrot cake, as well as five different varieties of savoury pastries.
Hotel Chocolat’s development chef David Demaison created the items based on dishes from the company’s restaurant at its Rabot Estate cacao farm on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. “We spent months obsessing, finessing, and taste-testing (of course), before settling on just the right ratio of chocolate to pastry, and more,” commented Demaison. “Now, our imaginative menu is ready to savour. A collection of chocolate and savoury creations designed to delight at breakfast, lunch, and every other moment besides.”
The new café collection includes:
- Beyond a Brownie – luxuriantly chocolatey loaded brownie cups, available in three bestselling flavours: signature 70% house grade dark, Dizzy Praline, and whole amaretto-soaked cherry in white chocolate ganache
- Baton Chocolatine – featuring two high-cacao batons nestled within buttery croissant dough, available in three flavours: 70% Dark, Raspberry-White, and Orange
- Hazelnut Crownie – a cookie-brownie hybrid packed with chocolate and Piedmont hazelnuts
- Rabot Estate Banana Bread – a nostalgic, cacao-rich creation crafted at Hotel Chocolat’s Boar Lane bakery in Leeds
- The Dunking Pastry – flaky enough to pull apart, but sturdy enough to dunk, swirl and savour
- Cacao Pod – a pastry lined with a choice of dark or white chocolate, filled with Cocoa Whip, and finished with molten chocolate drizzle, a milk shard, and crispy pearls
- Chocolatier’s Carrot Cake – layered and topped with light-as-air cream melded with molten 36% white chocolate
- Rabot Original Savoury Pastry – available with fillings of Caribbean Chicken Curry, Soufriere Spinach, Mushroom & Ricotta, Piton Pulled Pork, or Cortés Goat’s Cheese & Caramelised Onion.
These are being put on sale from today (1 August) at its Velvetiser cafés in Harrogate, Leeds Trinity, and Leeds Springs, as well as in Ilkley, which is set to open in late September. The Velvetiser Café concept is named after the milk frother that Hotel Chocolat sells to consumers to make velvety hot chocolate at home.
According to its website, Hotel Chocolat operates a total of 139 stores including 59 cafés. The company has unveiled plans to open 25 new stores across the UK next year, creating 200 new jobs. This expansion is being complemented by £10m investment in its manufacturing plant in Cambridgeshire, it said, which is generating an additional 50 jobs.
“This launch represents a significant milestone for the Velvetiser Café, as we expand our offerings to include a diverse and delectable menu inspired by our commitment to quality and innovation,” said Ian Mackie, head of Velvetiser Café.
“Each item is crafted with care and precision, using the finest ingredients sourced responsibly, reflecting our dedication to ethical and sustainable practices,” Mackie added.
Among Hotel Chocolat’s initiatives is its Gentle Farming programme, which supports 2,500 cacao farmers in Ghana with sustainable farming including pruning, provision of fast-growing shade tree saplings, and fertilizer application, as well as sharing knowledge to improve cacao yield while encouraging soil health and biodiversity.
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