The Chocolate Apothecary

Last weekend The Diver and I decided to do some exploraration on the Isle of Wight. A failure on both of our parts to grasp the finer principles of using a bus service led to an unexpected visit to Ryde.

Here we discovered 'The Chocolate Apothecary', a very promising looking wood panelled cavern lined with chocolate displays and a sign proclaiming "I'd give up chocolate but I'm no quitter."



http://www.chocolateapothecary.co.uk/index.html

Although the cafe looked a good place for hot chocolates etc we were ultimately in search of a lunch destination, so we settled for some chocolates to take away.


Here is what we got and the verdicts:

Salted Caramel- too fragile and gooey to go in a bad, these cups of golden goo had to eaten straight away (of course this was a hardship!) A nibble on the beautiful dark and white chocolate cup revealed the distressing cardboardy taste of inferior chocolate. The caramel itself tasted exactly like manjar- this is a Chilean version of the Argentine favourite Dulce de leche, also known as banoffee toffee. While this was tasty, it was too sickly and did not have the subtlety of flavours I would expect from caramel.

43% Ghanian Chocolate truffles- The filling hit a good balance between sweetness and cocoa depth, was was marred again by the chocolate cup it came in; the excellent quality of the filling only highlighted the disappointment of the cup.

Hazelnut Praline Cups- the praline was very liquid, actually more like a thick syrup, and more translucent than would be expected from a classic praline. This meant the texture did not have that smooth crumble-richness I love so much, while the taste was something like a suary nutella. It also came in a chocolate cup which I have discussed above.

In summary, it rates at 5/10. The idea and shop front are great, but with the prices they charge they should definitely consider either enclosing chocolates in a thicker cup of better quality chocolate, or in paper cases. The possible small drop in aesthetic value would be far outweighed by allowing their fillings to shine, especially if that salted caramel is made more grown up.