Peruvian perfection
We know the Junction might seem like the other end of the world if you live in North York, but we promise you, it’s worth the trek. To sustain you during marathon vintage furniture crawls, we recommend popping into Delight, a bijou chocolatier that uses only organic, fair trade chocolate. Every month husband-and-wife co-owners Jeff Brown and Jennifer Rashleigh offer a different signature hot chocolate. This month’s offering: a bittersweet orange concoction made with 70 per cent Peruvian chocolate. Organic cream is infused with orange peels, which is then strained. The hot, citrusy cream is then poured over chocolate pebbles, which are then whisked into a ganache that gets thinned with milk.
Delight Chocolate, 3040 Dundas St. W., 416-760-9995
Class-act cocoa
Nadège is perhaps best known for its almost-too-pretty-to-eat pastries, but this French bakery also makes a sensationally sumptuous hot chocolate. Currently, Nadège Nourian is the only chef in Canada working with Illanka chocolate. Classified as a Grande Cru cocoa, Illanka is some of the highest quality chocolate you’re likely to taste this year. Made with rare white Peruvian cocoa beans from 150-year-old trees, Illanka chocolate bears tart-sweet notes of blackberries, blueberries and black grapes. Chef Nourian melts down the chocolate and adds maple syrup, a touch of brown sugar, milk and cream. The resulting beverage, reminiscent of thick Viennese hot chocolates, is rich enough to sate even the most rabid chocoholic’s cravings.
Nadège Patisserie, 1099 Yonge St., 416-968-2011
Spice is nice
Up until Spanish colonialists started tweaking chocolate to suit their palates, the idea of a sweet sipping chocolate was non-existent. Some four millennia ago, Aztecs made a choco quaff that would revolt a modern-day tot. The cold-brewed bitter concoction — made from ground cocoa seeds, chili peppers, cornmeal and flowers — was believed to endow those who drank it with strength. After all, according to legend, cocoa was a gift from the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Soma’s Mayan hot chocolate is sure to give you a jolt of strength — especially if you opt to consume a concentrated shot of the rich, spicy liquid, which combines cocoa liquor with chilies de árbol, cinnamon, Madagascar vanilla, orange peel, ginger and secret spices.
Soma Chocolatemaker, 32 Tank House Ln., 416-815-7662
Lavish lavender
In Sweden, fika, which translates to “coffee break” or “to go for coffee,” can really be any social gathering that involves a sweet snack and a drink. So why not fika at Splendido’s café offshoot Fika? Kensington’s only Scandinavian café serves up a floral white hot chocolate made with lavender bitters and vanilla simple syrup. It might be too cold to enjoy Fika’s Arcadian backyard (complete with hammock), but you can at least take solace in the fact you’re not in Kiruna, Sweden, where it’s dark 24 hours a day in January. Shudder.
Fika Cafe, 28 Kensington Ave.
