The chocolate business is booming in Ireland, and it’s not the generic sweet shop bars and sugar-filled nostalgic childhood treats that are fuelling it. Chocolatiers producing hand-made, often hand-painted, edible works of art with creative fillings made from top quality ingredients are springing up across the country to feed demand for a better quality chocolate experience.
Irish chocolate entrepreneur Gráinne Mullins of Grá Chocolates in Co Galway, was recently named in the US magazine Forbes’s 30 under 30 European list of leading young innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. The former pastry chef turned chocolatier, who started her business in her parents’ garden shed during the pandemic, now has a purpose-built chocolate factory, and retails online and in Brown Thomas in Dublin and Galway. Mullins has won several awards for entrepreneurship and featured in the art and culture category of the Forbes list. According to the publication, Grá Chocolates’ revenue last year was $1 million (about €919,000).
Ireland’s five-star hotels have been quick to respond to their clients’ heightened expectations when it comes to in-room amenities, and a generic mint chocolate just won’t cut it any more when it comes to turndown. Both Ashford Castle in Co Mayo and Adare Manor in Co Limerick are launching chocolate and patisserie ventures within their grounds.
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Paula Stakelum is global director of chocolate and patisserie for the Red Carnation hotel collection, with 18 hotels in the UK, South Africa, Botswana, Geneva and Ireland, including Ashford Castle, where she is based, and The Lodge at Ashford. Stakelum, a former finalist in the Valrhona chocolate championships in New York, worked with Valrhona, and the hotel group’s president and founder, Beatrice Tollman, to develop two chocolate blends unique to Ashford Castle.
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The hotel’s sustainably sourced Legend and Legacy blends of couverture chocolate are used for the in-room amenities and for the new chocolate and patisserie space at Mrs Tea’s, a boutique and cafe within the grounds, which opened on April 1st. The new addition is called PaulaPastry, which is Stakelum’s social media handle.
The chocolate selection will be seasonal and may include foraged ingredients such as wood sorrel. “Our new pâtissier and chocolate counter is about bringing the essence of the estate to life through our chocolate creations, producing something that visitors will only ever experience from the Ashford Estate. Foraging for wild ingredients is something the chefs working on the Ashford Estate are passionate about and it will be a key element of our recipes at PaulaPastry – infusing our sweet treats with elements from the local and natural environment around us,” Stakelum says.
The signature chocolate blends at Ashford Castle are both milk, with Legend having 55 per cent cocoa and Legacy 31 per cent cocoa with hazelnuts, reflecting the hotel clientele’s preference. “We sell about two-thirds milk chocolate to one third dark,” she says.
At Adare Manor in Co Limerick, plans are under way for a stand-alone chocolate factory, shop and pâtisserie in a cottage on the grounds. Guests and visitors will be able to watch the confectionery being made, behind a glass wall. The project will be overseen by Adare Manor’s new executive pastry chef, Oliver Stievenard, who took up the position this week, moving from the Cashel Palace hotel. As well as working in Michelin-starred restaurants and hotels, Stievenard owned and ran a chocolate shop in his native France for eight years.
Ireland now has a chocolate sommelier, Shobitha Ramadasa, whose credentials include certification as a chocolate taster from the International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting, as well as work experience with chocolatiers in France. Ramadasa, originally from Malaysia, is now based in Dublin. A former lawyer, she now runs a consultancy business and conducts in-person and online courses in chocolate tasting and appreciation.
Irish people not only have a genuine interest in good chocolate but I find also really good palates, with an ability to pick out flavour profiles rather quickly
— Chocolate sommelier Shobitha Ramadasa
You can sign up to have a chocolate tasting kit delivered to you, and join an online tutored tasting, or commit to a more in-depth three-week chocolate connoisseur course (three one-hour video classes). The next chocolate connoisseur classes runs on May 17th, 24th and 31st, and the €120 fee includes a chocolate kit sent by post, with six international and local speciality chocolate bars, cacao beans, nibs and aroma samples.
Ramadasa, a former lawyer, has had a good response to her niche offering. “Irish people not only have a genuine interest in good chocolate but I find also really good palates, with an ability to pick out flavour profiles rather quickly. There is a significant appreciation of what goes into good chocolate, the painstaking craftsmanship as well as the interesting people behind it all.”
Four Irish chocolatiers to watch
Temptation Chocolates
Identical twin sisters Kate and Ruth O’Hara’s Temptation Chocolates is another pandemic success story. The duo left behind careers in accounting and finance in Dublin to turn their hobby into a business in early 2021.
They were both interested in studying culinary arts at third level, but opted for what Kate describes as “the safer option” of business studies. “It was a scary one,” she says of their joint decision to switch career lanes. “But this is more what we want to do with our life.”
They are entirely self-taught, and their hand-painted bonbons featured on The Late Late Show’s Taking Care of Business segment in their first year in business. They also won best artisan and best start-up at the Blás an hÉireann Irish Food Awards in 2021.
The sisters are from Durrow, Co Laois, and are based in Abbeyleix, where they have a chocolate boutique that opens on Saturdays (10am-4pm) and Sundays (11am-3pm), with plans for longer opening hours in the summer months. They also have an online shop.
The boutique is in Heritage House on the town’s main street, and as well as stocking up on chocolates, you can order coffee or hot chocolate. They plan to expand into patisserie in the future.
The Temptation range includes bonbons, bars, truffles and seasonal specials such as their Easter egg collection. Their Chocolatiers’ Choice collection comes in boxes of 12 or 24, with six varieties in each. “We have a core collection, and add seasonal specials,” says Kate. “A popular one at the moment is strawberry cheesecake, with strawberry pâte de fruit, cream cheese ganache and a biscuit base.”
Hazel Mountain Chocolate
Kasha and John Connolly’s chocolate factory in Bellharbour, Co Clare, is one of the few bean-to-bar producers in Ireland. They source beans from Madagascar, Venezuela, Mexico, Costa Rica and Cuba and make their chocolate from scratch.
Hazel Mountain makes a range of premium dark and milk chocolate bars, often with inventive flavour combinations such as dark chocolate with seaweed, and milk chocolate with toasted hazelnuts and elderberry. The range also includes chocolate-covered marshmallows, chocolate orbs with a crunchy malt centre, and a vegan truffle collection made with single-origin Mexican chocolate.
Creative director Kasha is a trained chocolatier, as well as a cookbook autho and third-generation baker. The factory welcomes visitors for guided tours and workshops, and there is a cafe on site, too, open Thursday to Sunday.
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Bon Chocolatiers
Everything made by Georgia Quealy and Daniel Linehan of Bon Chocolatiers in Athlone is outstanding. The indulgence starts with the beautiful packaging, stylish and sturdy coffrets – made from recycled paper – that you’ll struggle to dispose of once the chocolates are gone. Both are trained pastry chefs, and say they “fell in love through out shared love of chocolate”.
Their Signature Collection of 16 hand-made and beautifully hand-painted bonbons (€25) is available year round, with classic flavours of Oriel Sea Salt caramel; single origin Ghana ganache; blackberry and vanilla; and hazelnut and milk chocolate.
But look out for the seasonal limited edition releases, where you will find genius flavour combinations such as Cointreau and blood orange; Morello cherry, cranberry and pistachio; yuzu cheesecake; and rhubarb and Madagascar vanilla.
They have also introduced a Truly Dark collection (€22). This eight-piece box for chocolate connoisseurs has four flavours: caramelised cacao; chocolate salted caramel; raspberry and fark chocolate; and single origin Madagascar ganache.
Tara Gartlan Chocolate
Tara Gartlan was a senior pastry chef in Michelin-starred The Greenhouse and Chapter One by Mickael Viljanen, before setting up her own chocolate business, based at her family home in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. She has a production kitchen at the back of the house. “My dad and I built it; he’s a carpenter.”
Gartlan was diagnosed coeliac while studying to be a pastry chef, and her range of chocolates, as well as all the cakes, cookies and pastries she makes, are gluten-free and coeliac-friendly.
She is in the early stages of setting up nationwide delivery for her chocolates and is working on packaging, and aims to be ready to launch later this year. Her signature passion fruit caramel and milk chocolate bonbon displays the technical skills and mastery of flavour that she brought to her Michelin-starred restaurant work.
While establishing her business, she has done a number of successful pop-ups, including one at Graham Herterich’s The Cupcake Bloke Bakery, and on April 14th she will be cooking at Ursa Minor Bakehouse in Ballycastle.
Gartlan will be at Cloud Picker Coffee on Pearse Street in Dublin today to deliver pre-orders, and will have some additional Easter eggs for sale. Go early if you want to nab one; she will be there from 10am. She also has a collection of chocolates for sale individually at Cloud Picker on a regular basis, with a rotating choice of flavours. Her Saturday Treat Boxes, to order via her Instagram or Facebook accounts, can be picked up from Carrickmacross.
