Press

Observer Magazine – Chocolate Bars Feature
Mostly Dark Selection Box

Handmade bars you may not wish to share

A box of lovely handmade bars brings pure joy.

As winter pushed out autumn last year, I ordered a box of chocolates from Gabriella Cugno. Cugno, patissier and chocolatier, makes a selection of ‘gourmet filled chocolate bars’ about four times a year, as well as other specials (Easter eggs) that you pre-order. I love this restraint – the fact that there’s no endless stock. You wait. And if you miss that release, then you wait for the next one.

I had almost forgotten about my order until just before Christmas when the orange box arrived. Nestled inside, as cuddled up as newborn kittens, were six bars. Usually I share with my family. Not this time. I hid the box and every day over the Christmas break I would take one bar out and eat it all by myself while reading Craig Brown’s Ma’am Darling …