The Great Chocolate Hold Up
18 months ago, Karen Waller and Dean Leybourn quit life in York with an entire country to choose for their next home.
“We had no ties” says Dean. They’ve always gravitated towards the South West and stayed in Totnes for a month last January. It seems like they were hooked pretty much immediately; “It was just a couple of days. This place has a sense of community that we’ve not seen anywhere else.”
Karen has been working with chocolate for well over 15 years and is working as a carer. She worked as Head Chocolatier at Rococo Chocolates in London for 5 years and went independant with a chocolate shop in Tenby followed by another in York. They weren’t intending to restart again in the same vein until regularly walking past the abandoned butcher shop had them debating what it would be good for. They recognised that Bridgetown is under-served with retail or cafe locations and the itch ended up having to be scratched. They bit the bullet and got a lease on the space.
Cleaning up
“We will never attempt cleaning up a butcher shop ever again!” exclaims Karen passionately, “We called it ‘butcher goo’ and it was everywhere, in everything!“. (This reporter can attest to this as his own father was a butcher). That special smell has completely gone and even though building is still in progress, there is little sign of it’s previous residency. “It took us about two months to get this place properly clean” say Dean. The only remaining feature is a gleaming stainless steel butchers hanging rack in the window which is clearly to become a feature of future displays.
Sourcing
It seems obvious through conversation that Karen is fully dedicated to the consideration of where the ingredients for her chocolate will come from. “I have met with Cocoa farmers and source the beans from Madagascar, and I’m shipping in ingredients like hazlenuts for praline from Italy.” It kind of goes without saying that this is obviously a brand with ethical consciousness built-in to it.
What does it taste like?
Well, very annoyingly the delays in opening, prevented your correspondant from getting hold of any complimentary samples! I can only assume that with so many years of ‘doing chocolate’ will probably mean it’s going to be very good indeed. “The creative chemistry of chocolate really pleases me.” Karen has been working at home and so there will be a selection of samples available in the Totnes Cinema on Friday 26th with , appropriately the film ‘Chocolat’ with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. Amongst the offerings will be Caramels with Passion Fruit or Salcome Sea Salt along with chocolate shards.
A Bridgtown Cafe
Although it will be very small indeed, the Tempt Chocolate shop will feature a seating area and there will be drinks and cakes available for eating in or taking away. They are hopeful of some seating outside as well. “We’re half expecting people to turn up in pyjamas on a Sunday morning, which would be great!” Says Dean. “Yes, I’ll be happy to chat over the counter…” says Karen, “but don’t expect me to stop working on making my chocolates!”
Nearly There
It’s clear that they won’t be opening as immediately as they have been hoping but the space looks to be almost there with beautiful natural wood surfaces, a cold surface for tempering and making chocolates and the chilled display cabinets ready to go. “We’ll be installing two chocolate milling machines in the next few days- so we’re really, really close now.” says Karen.
Will people come from the thriving high street across the bridge? Karen doesn’t worry about that: “People will walk to chocolate”
I think she’s probably right. Although we did’t even mention the irony of a butcher shop turning vegan!