Last month, I took you shopping for luxurious sweet souvenirs at Audrey’s Chocolates, a nostalgic shop with an original 1960s interior, in Hove.
It’s one of those unique timeworn shops which remains true to its traditional roots, and flourishes despite rising city rents, and its off-the-beaten-track location – you have to make an effort to get here from the centre of Brighton.
When I visited, I was on a mission to taste the violet and rose creams I’d heard so much about. While I was there, I got chatting to the current owner, Keeley, who told me something that surprised me.
Audrey’s Chocolates supplies London food emporium, Fortum and Mason with all their chocolate. Not only this, but that they make all of the chocolates in the floors above the Hove shop! Who knew?
Looking at it from the outside, you’d never guess that it’s the setting for what I’m calling, Brighton and Hove’s secret chocolate factory. Lucky for me, Keeley surprised me with a private backstage tour. What a treat!
I followed Keeley behind the counter, through a door into her office, through another door up a narrow winding carpeted staircase and past half-landings stacked with boxes of chocolates bound for Fortnums.
We walk past doorways where I get a peek into the thickly scented chocolatey rooms buzzing with activity – a full-on operation and I couldn’t believe my eyes!
People were tempering chocolate, enrobing fondants, cracking open moulds, decorating Easter eggs, arranging crystallised petals on the rose and violet creams and packing everything up for delivery.
I felt so special getting to watch the Audrey’s Chocolates wizards hard at work. Each person I saw looked meditatively engrossed in their individual chocolate-making-related job.
I found out that tempering has something to do with making chocolate look glossy and not flat and that “enrobing” fondants is a fancy and lovely way of talking about covering them in chocolate.
One lady I met was cracking open Easter bunny moulds of various sizes ready for decorating with handmade bows and flowers.
I watched another person carefully decorating Easter eggs with pretty handmade flowers. I still can’t believe my eyes! Most of this bound for Fortnum and Mason in London!
I was intrigued by these interesting tools on the wall which Keeley told me are traditional chocolate moulds. They’re made out of alabaster, which are pressed into trays of cornflour and removed leaving an indentation to be filled with fondant cream piped in through a funnel designed by Keeley’s grandfather. Magic!
At the end of my tour, I realised I haven’t seen any Fortnum and Mason packaging. This is because the packing is done in a separate factory unit, where there are another 16 people!
Which makes me wonder if they plan to leave the townhouse. ‘No,’ Keeley quickly reassures me. ‘This place and its history is so much part of the chocolate-making process as the chocolate itself!’
So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed your backstage tour of Brighton’s secret chocolate factory. Until you visit the delightful shop, fill your boots with their chocolates on their website, here.
Side point: Audrey’s don’t offer behind-the-scenes tours to the public, I was lucky enough to get a backstage tour as a journalist.
Find Audrey’s Chocolates at 28 Holland Road, Hove BN3 1JJ or take a virtual visit here.
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