My chocolate classes are best in town, bar none!

Published on Friday 21 March 2008 09:28

FORGET a sense of fair play, moaning about the weather and waiting in queues – if there is one thing that truly defines us Brits, it's our love of chocolate.

We guzzle our way through a third of all the chocolate eaten in Europe every year – an average of 10kg for every man, woman and child. So you'd be forgiven for thinking that if there is one thing that we don't need lessons in, it is eating chocolate.

But that is exactly what Frenchman Bertrand Espouy intends to teach in Edinburgh, by setting up a chocolate-eating school.

Of course, Monsieur Espouy, founder of the gourmet label Plaisir du Chocolat, does not want to encourage us to cram even more cheap chocs down our throats.

What he wants to do is educate us to enjoy our chocolate more, to treat it more like a fine French wine.

"For years I've read so much rubbish about chocolate that I want to put people straight," he declares, as he prepares to hold his first chocolate workshops at his Thistle Street shop next month.

"The New York Times had an article saying chocolate was the new olive oil, but it is more appropriate to say chocolate is the new wine," says the chef, who learned a love of wine from his father as he grew up in Paris. "Just as you have different grapes, you have different beans."

Quality chocolate is something of a fixation for M Espouy, who believes you need to spend at least 1.80 to get a decent bar. And contrary to popular opinion, he insists good chocolate is not defined by its cocoa content.

"People think it needs to be 70 per cent cocoa to be good. That is total rubbish. What does 70 per cent cocoa mean? If it comes from a bean of poor quality, maybe over-roasted to disguise that, then you won't have good quality despite it being 70 per cent."

The criollo bean, he says, is "the Rolls Royce of cocoa beans", but you won't find that information on packets in the supermarket, so you'll just have to buy and try to find what you like.

M Espouy's classes – which cost between 35 and 48 – last two hours and cover the history of chocolate and tasting of pure cocoa, as well as other high cocoa chocolate, and samples of Plaisir du Chocolat's own rich and delicate range.

This writer found that, as M Espouy boasted there would be, there was more chocolate on offer than you could eat in one sitting.

But, despite his refined tastes, aren't there times when the master chocolatier fancies a Mars bar, or a Kit Kat with his cup of tea?

"I have eaten a Mars bar," he admits, "but it was a long time ago. I don't know if I've had a Kit Kat. I try to be principled because of what I do. I don't want to be caught in Tesco buying chocolate.

"I don't really eat chocolate when I'm out of work, maybe it's because I live with the stuff. I dream of a good pear or peach."

M Espouy is adamant, though, that he is not a chocolate snob.

"If you like Dairy Milk who am I to cast a judgement? I don't think it's good chocolate and I can intellectually demonstrate that. But if you like it – I won't argue."

&#149 www.plaisirduchocolat.com