Win a year’s supply of Hot Chocolate!

We’re on a mission to find Britain’s favourite hot chocolate venue. And we need YOU to help us find a worthy winner.
Simply tell us which café or chocolaterie deserves to win and you could win a year’s supply of hot chocolate. (Our prize winner will be chosen at random from everyone who votes. To keep things fair, we’ll only count 1 vote per person.)

Voting is simple

1. Leave a comment at the bottom of this page.
2. Tweet about it and cc us @TheChocFestival (#bestdrinkingchoc)
3. Leave a comment on our Facebook page The Chocolate Festival

If you run a business that serves amazing hot chocolate, why not ask your customers to nominate and vote for you? Some of our favourite haunts are already scoring high by doing just that!

Stay tuned!

Watch this space or follow us on Twitter or Facebook for a running update on voting. The winning Hot Chocolate Venue will be announced on our website soon. If you’re our winning voter, we’ll email you to tell you the good news. Happy Voting!

To kick of the 2013 Hot Chocolate Awards, Judith Lewis of chocolate blog Mostly About Chocolate tells us about her top hot chocolate picks.

Top Places To Drink Hot Chocolate 

Judith Lewis

In my travels around the world, I have visited a lot of chocolate shops, tried a lot of hot chocolate and I’ve had a lot of mixed experiences. Too many places think that they can fob you off with a cup of powdered hot chocolate mix in a plastic chair. What I look for in a hot chocolate is the whole experience. I want to be able to watch the world go by, discover something new, learn about new things, meet friends for an uninterrupted time or whatever. While the hot chocolate itself is important, so is the ambience.

So when I chose my favourite spots to drink hot chocolate, I didn’t just account for the chocolate itself but the whole experience. There is something special about being served hot chocolate made from real chocolate in a mug while seated in beautiful surroundings that are still accessible to anyone on any budget. I hope that you’ll get the chance to try some of the places on my list at least once.

Soma Chocolate (Distillery District store), Toronto, Canada

I chose Soma first because of the ambience of the shop. The distillery district store has all sorts of machinery behind glass in use on a daily basis. Whether roasting or conching, it is all on display for you. This also happens at their King St. branch, but there they mainly enrobe and at the moment it is livelier at the Distillery District branch. Another amazing part is that you can get a thick shot of wonderful hot chocolate (which I think is dairy-free), or get them to add hot moo juice to it for a weaker and more traditional hot chocolate treat. Seat yourself at one of the tables and watch the tourists go by. The staff are wonderfully passionate, the ambiance is amazing and the chocolate is some of the best in the world, made from bean to bar on the spot.

William Curley Shop, London, UK

I think that this is one of my favourite places in London for a hot chocolate. Not only do they use chopped up and melted Amadei in milk frothed to perfection, but also the ambience is absolutely perfect. The staff are charming and great to chat with, the people who shop there are fun to watch and sometimes fellow patrons turn into friends.

This is a top-notch hot chocolate as well as a fun place to sit and drink it. While not cheap, it is not too expensive and it is just a fun ambiance. I always opt for the dessert bar when I am there on weekends – the perfect accompaniment to a hot chocolate

La Pâtisserie des Rêves, Paris, France

This is possibly the most expensive hot chocolate I have ever had and yet also the funkiest. We each got a large mug of hot chocolate described as a praline hot chocolate as it had a hint of nuttiness. The hot chocolate came with a frozen, cooling chocolate truffle on a stick that you could either melt in the hot chocolate or eat on its own.

The white interior and Parisian hipsters make this an interesting place to see and be seen. There isn’t too much happening outside the window, but the flow of people through is interesting. The one I experienced had the seating area set behind the shop so it wasn’t as ideally placed as possible but for the sheer indulgence of it, I chose this as one of the top places to have hot chocolate. You’ll never have another one like it!

York Chocolate Story, York, UK

This is just an amazing amount of fun. The hot chocolate comes with all sorts of toppings and cream. The hot chocolate is quite nice though perhaps not on a par with William Curley however you get to sit at a very retro bar if you want, or at booths. You can watch all the people coming in and out of the York Chocolate story and you can also watch the people outside.

There is always so much going on that it’s easy to forget to drink your hot chocolate and instead earwig on people coming out of the experience, watch the people going by or if you choose, just enjoy a good book.

Tcho, San Francisco, USA – This has to be one of the coolest places to have a hot chocolate. Not only are you surrounded by the most AMAZING huge machinery and can go on a tour, but all the staff are utterly geeky about chocolate. You can have a long conversation about the merits of the soil conditions in Ecuador, blending or just grab your hot chocolate and watch all the other chocolate lovers go through the space. The environment is amazing and so incredible that it just makes having a hot chocolate made from some of the best chocolate in the world that much more special. Both the high quality of the chocolate in a hot chocolate plus the environment is what makes this a top choice for me.

So those are my picks, but what are your favourite places?

• Amisqi brings you ‘Alfajores’ – a Latin American delicacy, covered in chocolate!
• Buy the biggest Easter egg available for retail in the UK from The Stas Partnership
• Bring a twist to your next DIY session with chocolate made tools from Choco Passion
• Grab one of Cocoa Mistress’ famous psychedelic Easter eggs
• Join Meantime Brewery for some hot chocolate porter and chocolate beer

There are many, many more delightful chocolates and chocolate products to enjoy, you can find a full list of our exhibitors here. So make sure to come by for a tremendous day, which promises to be fabulous fun for everyone.

There will be a range of fantastic hands-on workshops hosted by top chefs & chocolatiers from which you can choose, all promising to be great fun & full of chocolaty delights. From chocolate-dipped marzipan hot cross buns and chocolate sablés to stuffed chocolate tortellini and the ultimate chocolate cake, there is something for everyone, as long as they love chocolate.

Fancy joining the experts and learning how to make some delicious goodies? Take a look at our timetable here for everything we have to offer. And now for the best bit; you get to keep everything you make!