Dark Sugars, London

Dark Sugars
141 Brick Lane
London E1 6SB
07429 472606

When we were wandering around Shoreditch for a Street Art Walk, a couple of yelpers in the group, pointed out Dark Sugars and told me that I had to try them out.

I'd promised a friend I was visiting over the weekend, that I would pick up the rainbow bagels for her, so it was the perfect opportunity to try Dark Sugars Chocolates too.

There are large bowls of beautiful chocolate all around the store. Neatly labelled. You have the options to go fruity or alcoholic. I of course, chose the latter.

I asked the really sweet and helpful lady manning the store if it would be possible to try a bit of chocolate before I chose. She told me to look around and choose any flavour I fancied. I thought she would give me a bit of a scraping from the white and milk chocolate bars that she had on the counter, so this came as a complete surprise, but it was a foretaste of the generosity of spirit of Dark Sugars.

I tried the Tia Maria on her recommendation and was hooked.

Its an excellent quality chocolate shop without the fancy pretentiousness of other chocolatiers (who shall not be named). All sales are by weight and all chocolates cost the same - 7 pounds for 100 grams. So no complex mental maths involved in the purchasing scenario.

It seems a little radical to pop assorted beautiful chocolates into a plastic baggy like a candy buffet, but its definitely cost effective. If you aren't buying chocolate for yourself and want to gift it, they have different sized gift boxes and each size has a fixed price (5 to 100 pounds if I remember right. Where you are allowed to stuff in as much chocolate as can fit.

I made up a box for my friend and took it to the counter, the lady told me I could still fit in a few more chocolates and took me back to the bowls and asked which ones I wanted more of. She managed to fit in another 4-5. I mean, who does that? I'm blown away by how friendly and generous this shop is.

The pipette chocolate looked interesting and I asked her how it worked. Instead of just explaining to me theoretically about squeezing out the liquid in the pipette and throwing the plastic pipette away, she demonstrated one and gave it to me to taste.

I made up a few plastic baggies for me, the husband, the brother, the sister. I have a full house at home right now. and a gift box for my friend.

The chocolates were immediately devoured upon my arrival home and I'm waiting to head into shoreditch again so I can try the hot chocolate too and pick up more chocolate.

If you are visiting, I'd say : Definitely pick up one of the Pipette chocolates. They are amazing! The Irish kiss is obviously my favourite. Also, when I brought the chocolates home, they were voted the best of the lot.

Rating : 5 / 5