These scrumptious Provençal almonds are toasted, caramelised and rubbed with herbs and vanilla. They are then enrobed in fine dark chocolate and dusted with cocoa powder.

Rococo was founded in March 1983 by Chantal Coady. With a deep passion for chocolate, she believed there was a need communicate the excitement of delicious, luxury chocolates and opened a shop on the King’s Road in Chelsea, London. Born in Tehran, her family eventually settled in South London, and this exotic background comes through in the unique chocolate flavours she makes, including Basil and Persian Lime, and Cardamom. Chantal’s creativity and taste for the theatrical are evident in the distinctive packaging of her products.

Chantal envisaged Rococo to be a chocolate paradise. With friends from art school she painted cherubs and clouds on the ceiling after Botticelli’s ‘The Birth of Venus’ and stippled the walls in a candyfloss pink that matched her hair. A chandelier was made from sugar; gilded mirrors and candelabra were mounted on the walls. Her eighteenth-century-meets-punk style fit into the rebellious vibe of Kings Road and the imagination and sense of fun intoxicated chocolate lovers who, bored with suffocating department store confectionery departments, came on pilgrimages from miles away. One of our early customers was Joanne Harris, and it’s even been said that Chantal was an inspiration for her book ‘Chocolat!’

Rococo is luxury chocolate with a firm ethical foundation and now uses fairly traded ‘ethical’ cocoa produced on Chantal’s own farm in Grenada. The farm is a joint venture between Rococo and the Grenada Chocolate Company (GCC) and every Rococo organic bar now includes its Grenada chocolate in the recipe.