The real Willy Wonkas

Chantal Coadyrococo Chocolates

“As a child, I walked through landscapes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in my dreams. I thought everyone dreamt of opening their own chocolate shop. Perhaps they did, but then got sensible,” says Chantal Coady.

While studying at art school, she took a holiday job in the confectionery department of Harrods. Her time there was bittersweet – she thought the atmosphere “funereal” – but it re-ignited her childhood dream and in 1983, she opened her first chocolate shop on London’s King’s Road.

“Our distinctive blue and white packaging has been there from the start,” she says. “The designs are based on a book of 19th-century chocolate moulds.” Not just a pretty place, Rococo has become a platform from which Chantal can discuss chocolate-related issues. In 1986, she started the Campaign for Real Chocolate to educate chocolate fans about the differences between mass-produced and artisan chocolate. She has invested in an organic cocoa plantation in Grenada and continues her educational mission by holding tasting sessions at Rococo’s new chocolate house on Motcomb Street in London.

‘As a child I thought everyone dreamt of opening their own chocolate shop. Perhaps they did’

Willie Harcourt-Cooze | Willie’s world-class Cacao

“It wouldn’t have the same ring to it if I were called Simon,” chortles Willie Harcourt-Cooze, standing beneath his neon ‘Willie’s Chocolate Factory’ sign. Roald Dahl’s character resonated with him long before Channel 4 dubbed him a modern day Willy Wonka, though. "I loved that book as a child," he says.

Venture inside his Devon factory and some of the fictional magic comes to life, with bronze machines clanking and long tubes spouting.

Anyone who saw the documentary Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory will know Harcourt-Cooze sold everything to buy a plantation in Venezuela, where he spent more than a decade perfecting the art of growing criollo cocoa beans.

Now, cylinders of 100 per cent pure cacao, made from his beans, are flying off the shelves. And he’s working on 41 per cent milk and 71 per cent dark chocolate bars, as well as a drink called Get-Up & Gocoa. “It will be as close to Aztec cocoa as you can get,” he says. “The conquistador Hernán Cortés said ‘An army can march all day on one glass of chocolate.’ It wasn’t until hundreds of years later that it was made into bars. I’m taking chocolate back to its roots.”

‘It will be as close to Aztec cocoa as you can get. I’m taking chocolate back to its roots’

Nick Crean and Bill Keeling Prestat

“I was mesmerised by Prestat, in Mayfair, as a child,” says Nick Crean, opposite right. “When I was 14, I went in with a cheque book and Peggy Cramer, the manager, asked for ID. My only ID was a name-tag sewn in the back of my boxer shorts. She had a look and let me buy the chocolates,” he chuckles.

Some 20 years later, Nick was still a loyal customer and when, in 1998, he discovered that the business was struggling he teamed up with his half-brother Bill Keeling to buy it.

They were delighted when Peggy gave them the key to a locked basement room crammed with mementos of the company’s 100-year history – actors such as John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft would stop in to buy chocolates, and Prestat truffles feature in Roald Dahl’s novel My Uncle Oswald.

Since taking the reins at Prestat, Nick and Bill have re-energised the brand with bright, theatrical packaging designed by their friend Kitty Arden. And while they are serious about the quality of their chocolate, it is playful confections such as their Prestat Babes – chocolate-covered fruit jellies – that best capture the spirit of the shop. “We believe chocolate should be fun,” says Nick. ‘I was mesmerised by Prestat as a child’

Willian Curley

Stepping into the eponymous William Curley boutique chocolate shop and patisserie in Richmond, Surrey, is like entering a Willy Wonka fantasy world with a gourmet twist. Shelves and counters are weighed down with dark chocolate lollipops, jars of chocolate raspberry spread, towering Mont Blancs and truffles laced with yuzu, green tea and sake: William’s wife and business partner Suzue was born in Japan.

Mention Willy Wonka, though, and Curley’s face scrunches up. He certainly wasn’t inspired by the 1970s film: “The chocolate river looked like horrible brown water,” he says. If it had been flowing with his own, multiple-award-winning chocolate, perhaps he might have been more beguiled.

The Scot, who has worked with Marco Pierre White and Raymond Blanc and was chef patissier at the Savoy for years, never thought success would be so sweet. “Where I grew up there wasn’t a chocolate shop in sight,” he says. “I ended up in chocolate by accident.” It’s no accident, however, that he has twice been named Best British Chocolatier by the Academy of Chocolate. He also shares his expertise in an apprenticeship programme, inspiring the next generation of chocolatiers.

‘Where I grew up, there wasn’t a chocolate shop in sight. I ended up here by accident’