La Promenade, BlogZine di Informazione

In 1983, a young woman dared to follow her dream: to share with others her love for chocolate. Determined to change the way fine chocolate was perceived and presented, Chantal Coady transformed the stuffy, conservative, commercial norm of chocolate retailing to the inspiring engagement of the senses that such a delectable delight deserved, and through it, has spread the beauty and joy of chocolate far and wide – starting with London!
Passion
In 1983, Chantal Coady dared to follow her dream: to share with others her love for chocolate. Nearly three decades, three shops, and many, many delicious chocolates later, she has certainly shared her dream with thousands of customers from around the world – all the while supporting ethical trade for cocoa farmers.
Chocolate Paradise
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, Grenada, & the Grenada Chocolate Company
In Spring 2002, we first tasted some chocolate from the Grenada Chocolate Company – and fell in love with it. When we visited the island of Grenada in 2004 to make a chocolate documentary with filmmaker Eti Peleg, we didn’t realise we would have an instrumental meeting: we met Mott, Edmond and Doug who had founded the Grenada Chocolate Company in 1999, and with whom we formed strong friendships, forged over countless cups of Grenadian cocoa tea and chocolate bars.
Later that year, when Hurricane Ivan hit Grenada, and then Hurricane Emily less than a year later, we were moved to help, as these hurricanes damaged much of the northern tip where the GCC are based, and devastated all the cocoa on the island. In fact, it would be five years before the next really good harvest.
Using the very chocolate that had been in the conch when Hurricane Emily hit, combined with our own organic chocolate, we produced the special edition ‘Hurricane Emily Bar’ and gave the proceeds to ‘Hearts and Hands,’ the Grenada Relief Fund.
Grococo
In 2007, we were able to team up with the GCC and purchase a small cocoa farm, a perfect opportunity to produce our own fairly traded, ethical chocolate. This small plot of land we call Grococo is now the ‘home farm’ that supplies 100% of its harvest of fine flavoured organic Trinitario cocoa beans to the GCC where they are made into fine chocolate. It’s also one of the founding farms that make up The Grenada Organic Cocoa Farmers’ Cooperative!
Since our first successful Grococo harvest, we have been including our own Grococo beans in our Rococo Organic House Blend and all of Rococo’s organic products now include our very own Grococo beans.
The many flavours and types of chocolate
While many of us now know – and have tasted the many flavours and types of chocolate, it wasn’t too long ago that chocolate was found as a milk chocolate bar at one end of the spectrum, and rose and violet creams at the other.
After selling rose and violet creams in a luxury department store’s chocolate section herself, Chantal knew the constraining and joyless environment could simply not express the magic of such chocolate… and decided to change it all.
http://www.rococochocolates.com