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Best hot chocolate to takeaway | Best hot chocolate to make at home

Chocolate was a hot drink long before it evolved into the bars, truffles and Cadbury confectionery range we know today. In Mexico, where the cocoa pod originates, drinking – rather than eating – chocolate is still the norm. Market stalls all over the country (which is stifling hot, let’s not forget) grind and whisk cocoa into frothy concoctions on a daily basis. In London, where the predominance of tea is threatened only by coffee, drinking chocolate seems to reach its zenith on bleak February afternoons.

But the advantage here is that you can enjoy all the different styles of hot chocolate, ranging from molten grand cru varieties at the city’s best chocolatiers, to short, thick shots of black Florentine chocolate in Italian caffès. Such are the capital’s cocoa-flavoured innovations that you can sample even the authentic tastes of Mexico with little more than the swipe of an Oyster card.
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At Taqueria in Notting Hill the hot chocolate is light and frothy, and made with plenty of steamed milk. Like on the market stalls in Mexico, the ground cocoa base tablets are flavoured with cinnamon and almonds. These give a subtle, intriguing sweet spiciness, but also a gritty finish that may seem ‘wrong’ to people more used to the silky-smooth style of European hot chocolate.

Artisan chocolatier Paul A Young

Taqueria’s owner, the Cool Chile Company, a Mexican food supplier, makes the tablets at its NW10 industrial unit by roasting raw cocoa nibs then grinding them with the almonds, cinnamon and light muscovado sugar. ‘It was as close to the Mexican piloncillo (cones of unrefined sugar) as we could find,’ explains founder Dodie Miller.

Spanish and Portuguese traders introduced cinnamon and almonds to Mexico, and their use as chocolate flavourings there is now commonplace. But food-loving Londoners are demanding chocolate and chilli combinations, so Miller has also developed a pre-Hispanic style of drinking chocolate that she’s named after the Mayans. It contains ancho chile pepper, plus allspice and annatto, both of which are indigenous to the Caribbean. The annatto gives the drink a ruddy colour and an appealing perfume but it’s the chilli that people find intriguing,
says Miller. ‘Ancho goes very well with chocolate, unlike cayenne, which catches too much at the back of the throat.’

You’ll also find chilli ready and waiting to be added to cups of hot chocolate at the stores of artisan chocolatier Paul A Young. Customers can drink the deliciously dark hot chocolate as is or choose from a row of powdered spices that also includes cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and a mixed spice blend.

Although he’s not averse to adding spicy flavourings, Young believes that milk and cream distort the natural complex flavours of hot chocolate and so always makes his with water. ‘Using water allows you to experience the cocoa bean as it should be: unadulterated,’ he says. ‘Chocolate has enough of its own natural fat – cocoa butter – so there is no need to add other fats such as cream.’

Young flits between 70, 68, 66 and 64 per cent varieties of chocolate depending on the weather, and keeps the mixture brewing all day so that it intensifies, creating a glossy, thick drink. ‘A cold, biting day needs warmth, robustness and nothing acidic so we make it with 70 per cent cocoa solids chocolate,’ he explains. ‘A sunny, warm spring day needs 64 per cent Madagascan chocolate, which is lighter, fruity and less robust. I check the weather forecast daily so I can make the correct hot chocolate – I think we are the only chocolaterie doing this and it is
very popular.’

At Melt, where Keith Hurdmann is the master chocolatier, thick, intensely dark hot chocolate – with no added sugar – is served in tiny cups. ‘It’s powerful and in-your-face,’ says Hurdmann, who compares the effect with a tot of whisky. They make it by infusing Madagascan vanilla pods in double cream then adding a mix of Melt’s house-blend chocolate and 100 per cent cocoa solids couverture. So far so gourmet, but Hurdmann also adds a tiny touch of fresh peppermint. ‘It’s not enough to taste,’ he quickly explains, ‘but it pulls it all together. Like salt in a properly seasoned soup.’

Carluccio’s Florentine-style hot chocolate is also served in tiny portions – in little espresso cups. Almost black and devillishly thick,
it is worth skipping dessert for. Alternatively, do as they do in Turin (one of Italy’s centres of chocolate production) and try a bicerin, in which chocolate is mixed with coffee and cream. At Carluccio’s the ingredients are presented in little jugs for you to mix to suit yourself – a great start to the day for anyone who finds coffee a little hard on the stomach.

Young's spices

In fact, the settling digestive powers of hot chocolate make it rather good morning sustenance. As everyone who’s been to Spain knows, hot chocolate with churros – long piped ‘doughnuts’ – are the must-try breakfast for anyone who’s spent a night on the sherry. Camino in King’s Cross serves churros on its new morning menu with a little dish of hot chocolate made from Spain’s highly popular Valor Chocolate à la Taza.

You can also buy the mixture in full-sized mugs to drink in or take away. It’s thick and creamy but not intensely dark (no surprise that the first item on the ingredients list is sugar rather than chocolate, and it contains thickeners such as rice flour).

Maybe late-afternoon is when you get the craving. In which case try Latvia’s Emihls Gustavs hot chocolate along with a block of creamy Latvian honey cake at Cake Therapy on Shaftesbury Avenue, or head for one of the branches of prestige bakery Konditor and Cook. They make superbly dark, molten hot chocolate, just the thing for warming the arteries on a cold afternoon at Borough, or taking a break from office politics in its new café in the Gherkin. Konditor and Cook’s version is intensely flavoured, certainly, but not so much that you can’t enjoy a sizeable cup, thanks to the inclusion of milk along with the 70 per cent cocoa solids chocolate, double cream and vanilla pods.

For the height of elegance, head over to the new William Curley store, café and dessert bar in Shepherd Market, where they offer a choice of four (four!) hot chocolates. In addition to an anything-but-plain Venezuelan 70 per cent cocoa solids version, there is a light, milky but extremely satisfying hot chocolate flavoured like gianduja, an Italian confection of ground hazelnuts and chocolate. Curley doesn’t forget the spice rack either, offering ‘Toscano black’ with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and honey, as well as an ‘Aztec’ version that blends chilli and 72 per cent cocoa solids chocolate.

Best of London’s high-street brands is Apostrophe’s hot chocolate, so thick it can be eaten with a spoon, though staff will add extra milk for customers who prefer it thinner. Owner Amir Chen explains that the basic mixture is bought from the chain’s Italian coffee roaster and whisked with milk in each outlet before being churned in stainless steel urns they also import specially from Italy. Although the hot chocolate is made from a powder it’s no instant mix – each batch takes nearly half an hour to reach the correct velvety consistency. ‘Some people want this hot chocolate so much they will just walk out if we don’t have it ready,’ Chen confesses.

They had better keep those urns churning, then. After all, it is February, and bleak days always seem much brighter after a good cup of chocolate. Even the ancient Mexicans knew that, and they had sunshine on their side.