I Tried London’s Best Pastries & Chocolate ¦ Kirsten Tibballs

Join me on my tour of London for the top chocolate and patisserie stores. Let's not forget the best hotels where some of them have their own patisserie shops and wonderful high teas. I've tasted some absolutely amazing products and I've only put the best of the best in this list. Come along with me and I'm going to share with you the best places to go and the best things to eat. I went for the pecan caramel tart which is not necessarily the best seller but it just looks like it has a lot of texture and well balanced. I can smell the vanilla already. Okay you have three stores here in the UK and I'm at their Mayfair store. This is a really great tart particularly for winter. It has all those hallmark flavours that you would expect this time of year. I'm here at Cedric Grolet in London at the Berkeley Hotel. Cedric's products are very unique. They're all handcrafted and he himself is extremely creative and innovative. I can't wait to see what they have inside. We're here a little bit early for the cakes. So the cakes start about 10.30am 11am and they change seasonally. They don't necessarily reflect the cakes that are served or offered in Paris so there is a little bit of difference. Cedric's is definitely a little bit more on the expensive side but it's well worth it as a special treat if you want to try his creations. I've chosen a hot chocolate and a pan suite. Perfect buttery layers and really good quality chocolate. It's fantastic. It's quite large so definitely one pastry for two people would be fine. I'm here at the Dorchester Hotel in London with Alec Lowe who's the executive pastry sous chef. Now Alec, these look absolutely amazing. Can you explain for me what all the different little petit fours are? Yeah of course. So this is our autumn winter menu. On this side here we have a pear tart. So it's a pear compote lightly spiced with cinnamon with almond cream and pâte sucrée. This one is a raspberry cheesecake. So it's got like a raspberry ripple and some vanilla chantilly. It's very classic. Again a super classic vanilla Saint-Honoré, vanilla pastry cream, vanilla chantilly, caramel. In front is a little chocolate hazelnut prairie breast. So hazelnut praline, chocolate chantilly, chocolate pâte sucrée. Is this a signature mold for the Dorchester? Yeah so it's our bespoke signature mold. Again to reflect the flower shop, just a little flower and yeah we rotate seasonally as well. And are these just available in store or do you use these as room amenities? Predominantly just in store. We have a few different other things for amenities. We do sometimes for amenities. Depending we'll change the colours to match things as well for like bespoke amenities. I'm here at the Dorchester which opened in 1931. I'm now here in this beautiful art deco inspired room called the Promenade. I met Alec in the cake and flower shop. Alec is going to bring me a selection of their best cakes and chocolates which I can't wait to try. He's also going to take me back of house to give me a look inside the pastry kitchen. So Alec you have bought some extras here which look absolutely sensational. Yeah so this is part of our afternoon tea. So it's our autumn winter menu. We just launched it recently. If you were to pick one, your last cake you're ever going to eat, which one are you going to pick? Probably Saint-Honoré or this pear tart. It's very fresh, super fruity. Okay all right great recommend. They look absolutely stunning. So many choices and unfortunately although I'm pretty good I don't think I can try them all but I'm going to give it a good go. So light and refreshing and often when cakes are glazed, the glaze can be a little bit too thick or a little bit too much gelatin. The balance in this cake is absolutely superb. I think it's important to note if you have a look at the selection of cakes they've got here is they're all quite small and they're all really light. So when you're trying multiple cakes, they've got the perfect balance of flavour, sugar, fruitiness. That is absolutely superb. Next is a pear tart. Chef Alec recommended this as well as the Saint-Honoré so I think I'm going to try both. This also is really light which is perfect. Pears are in season and the pear flavour is beautiful. That little touch of acidity balances really well with the almond base and it's a beautiful buttery shortbread case. Saint-Honoré is next, a French classic. I'm sure it has a little bit of an English twist. What's interesting about the Saint-Honoré is most patisserie exams around the world require you to make Saint-Honoré because it requires so much skill. Puff pastry, you've got choux pastry, you have to be able to caramelise sugar and you have to be able to work with creme patissiere and cream. Let's take a look. I should have bitten that in half and shown you inside because to fill these tiny little profiteroles with so much creme patissiere is impressive in itself. Sweet and salty, crunchy and creamy, it's really the ultimate dessert. Next I'm going to try the mandarin cake. Coming into winter in the UK, this is the perfect dessert. Keep in mind that the items in the afternoon tea are rotated every six to seven weeks following the seasons. The pop of grapefruit combined with the creme, I think this one actually might be my favourite. After high tea, Alec was kind enough to take us behind the scenes and showed us the kitchens at the Dorchester. I must say this is the cleanest kitchen I've ever been in. It was stunning. I'm here at the Claridges Patisserie, part of the Claridges Hotel. This is actually a separate patisserie which you have to go around the back to find. I've picked the blackberry petit gateau which I'm going to have a taste of. They've just popped a little Saint Honoré down which looks magnificent. Puff pastry layers, profiteroles with toffee filled with creme patissiere, chantilly cream on top, looks amazing. Definitely chocolate in there. It's really light. The fruit really shines through. It's not overly sweet at all and you get those little spots of the creme in there as well. Now I'm here for the caramel centre, chantilly cream, profiteroles, toffee and of course the puff pastry. Now if you're a lover of Saint Honoré, this one is one of the best Saint Honoré I've ever tasted. The texture in there and the balance of sweetness and creme and toffee and caramel. Puff pastry is perfectly balanced. Make sure you don't come too late in the day or you may miss out. Their pastries, croissants and danish are also sublime. Our own bakery has been high up on my list. Unfortunately I'm eating so much that I can only try one thing. This is their honey butter toast that I'm trying which is their biggest seller. People are queuing for 30 minutes to an hour to secure this beautiful delicacy. I can see what all the hype is about. You've got a delicious honey flavour, crunchy exterior and a soft texture in the centre. Just gonna have a quick crumble break. I got myself a box of the Barnaby chocolates. Now these are such a simple concept but very well made. Draws people in because they actually enrobe the chocolates in the stores. These are the flavours hazelnut, peanut, cornflake, caramel, orange and pistachio. I'm going to start with the caramel and I may not stop so here we go. Brilliant shortbread topped with caramel and belgium chocolate coating. Here we go. This is a lot for one person in one day but I think I've got it in me. Hard caramel. Oh look at that inside. Cheers! I can confirm the Saint Honoré donut is really good. A little bit on the sweet side but beautifully put together. Now I'm here at Chestnut Bakery. This croissant has won best croissant two years in a row in London so I'll be the judge of that. Yeah I think they're pretty much spot on with their judging. That is amazing. Buttery layers. They've actually warmed it slightly for me as well which is a really lovely touch but there's so much to choose from in the counter. But it'd be rude not to try the best croissant in the UK. They have three stores. The store I'm at here actually has their production facilities downstairs but wow what a croissant. Don't mind me while I finish the rest of my croissant and I'm not surprised that this is their bestseller. It's a must-have when you come to Chestnut Bakery. The next spot on my list is just a short walk away. Stay with me. Probably doesn't surprise you but I went for the Chocolate Heaven Cupcake which is always on the menu and very very popular. I'm literally going to sample it out the front of the shop. I can tell already it's really moist chocolate cake. This is going to be very unladylike so if you want to look away do so now. Oh that's good. You can tell it's good quality chocolate. Rich, decadent and very moist but I think you could eat more than one. Oh I know I could. Here at Belly Chocolates and I'm give you a little sneak peek behind the scenes. Come with me. I'm here at Belly Chocolate and I've picked three from the counter to try. Now this is mixed berry and white chocolate which looks amazing. The acid should break down the sweetness of the white chocolate. That's really good. It does have some sour notes to it which balances the white chocolate really really well. I've chosen chocolates that I don't see a lot of and the next one is actually seeds and cereals. So I've got that one here. So it looks like it has so much texture in it. This tastes like a naughty breakfast. Don't tell anyone though. My last choice is milk and dark chocolate with caramel pieces. You can see the pieces there and it has peanut in it as well. So a layer of dark chocolate on the base and milk chocolate on top and the caramel normally when you've got sugar like that you do get a little bit of a ooze of caramel. No ooze of caramel. You can tell it's really good quality chocolate that they've used in all of their bars and there's a lot of chocolate for every bar. If I had to pick a favourite out of the three I'm going to go for seeds and cereal. Beautiful. I'm here at Mount Chocolates in Notting Hill. Such a beautiful street. Come with me and we'll take a look inside. I've come into the kitchen of Mount Chocolates and I'm here with Paul the chocolatier. Now Paul I could spend days going through these advent calendars. Can you tell me a little bit about them? First of all welcome to Mount Chocolates. What we have here our advent calendar range that we've slowly built and built on over the years and it's taken a lot of inspiration from the staff and people that work within Mount. So we get the opportunity to design take inspiration also from everything we walk past day to day. Because we're in Notting Hill so lots of inspiration there if you didn't pick up on that from the beautiful colours. So can you show me through what's inside because I know I'm going to have to take one of each back home to Australia. No worries. Well we'll start with the log cabin one. You open up these doors at the front and you've got all these little boxes inside. It's got a little bit about sort of that warmth feeling and everything inside. But let's not forget the chocolates and the treats inside. Well that's the most important thing at the end of the day isn't it? We could do all of this but if the stuff inside isn't yummy and delicious then that's what we that's no point. And I love the element of surprise so when you go in there you don't actually know what you're going to get. So can you take us through some of the other advent calendars? So we're going to head down to Portobello Road and we've got our Portobello advent calendar here. We want it to be indicative of the area you know with the brightly coloured houses, all the different shops and everything that you find along the way. Prime real estate here with mouse. Well of course you have to put yourself front and centre don't you? So then we're going to slide. Oh it's a pop-up. I want to have a look inside. Oh that is beautiful. All right let's see what have I got there. Look at that a rocking horse. So we have five different advent calendars and they explore all the different types of chocolate and variations in chocolate you can get from filled chocolates to individual solid chocolates to nice big sharing bars. So I'll tell you what because you've been waiting so patiently why don't we go make some of these advent calendar chocolates? Never thought you'd ask. This is exciting for me to actually come into someone's home their kitchen and make some chocolates. So which one are we going to be making? So we're going to be making the one at the front here which is the horchicha tea praline. So where do we start? So we start off we've got some melted cocoa butter here and blend our horchicha into more of a paste that's going to mix through. Now what we're going to do is we're just going to fold our paste in with our hazelnut praline paste giving it a really good stir. So what we've got here to add in is we've got some gold chocolate which is sort of it's a newer version of white chocolate. It's not only the cocoa butter that's going to set this filling but we have cocoa butter in the chocolate as well that is going to contribute to the beautiful flavour but it's also going to contribute to the setting capacity of the filling. So once this sets we then, we, you, coat it in chocolate? Yes so we we cut it up we send it through our enrobing machine coat it into milk chocolate and then we sprinkle just a little bit of those horchicha tea leaves on the outside. So now can I try one of these? Go for it dig in. That is absolutely sublime it's beautiful you've got the subtle notes of the tea the hazelnut shine through and that gold chocolate is magnificent. Now these chocolates are absolutely superb and I highly recommend that you make a trip to Melt because you don't want to miss one of these chocolates. If you can get some of their packaging which makes a perfect gift or an ornament within your own home it's really sensational. After finishing up our chocolates we also got to sit down with Melt's owner Andrew Nason inside their yurt it's where they host their cacao ceremonies it's a really unique experience. I hope you enjoyed my whirlwind cake chocolate and patisserie tour of London it was absolutely divine I did pack a lot into a short period of time I recommend that you take your time and enjoy all the chocolate and patisserie stores that I recommend you won't be disappointed.