There are some chocolates so good, I never forget first tasting them. Bare Bones’ 68% Salted Dominican, the most unassuming of bars whose flavour notes keep playing long after eating, is still one of my favourites.
Pralus’ Barre Infernale (orange): a brutish brick, with a wonderful, dark, orangey, jammy middle. Neuhaus’s nougatine and fresh vanilla cream Caprice, eaten after a period of such dietary austerity that when I ate it the clouds parted and angels sang.
Zotter’s Plum Brandy, the first time I’d ever tasted a “filled” chocolate bar and what was meant to be one bite ended up being the entire bar, consumed with the decorum of a python, standing on the pavement behind London’s Oxford Street. Or Sur Alfajores, the 70% original, with a thick coating of chocolate around an orangey biscake and a dulce de leche filling, like the best wagon wheel ever.
The other day I came across a bar to add to the shelf of legend: a bar that tested all of me in every way. In the end I actually had to eat the rest of it (I ate it over four days, which isn’t a lot to many but very fast for me) to remove it from temptation’s path and from my life evermore. It was so good that while it existed it tormented me. I didn’t share it; I didn’t ask anyone else for their opinion. This bar was my soul mate.
Ducasse’s 75% Amande, Orange Confit and Figue, a slab of dark chocolate into which has been pressed whole, caramelised almonds, pistachios and pine nuts, figs and candied orange. Roll out all the adjectives here: splendid, delicious, classy, tasty, magnificent. Just the right amount of everything. Beautiful. It made me want to cry. Listen to me and please, please, don’t let it into your house.