This month’s Chocolate Week (18–25 October) is as good an excuse as any to take indulgence beyond the minibar. From cacao grown on a Caribbean estate and Vienna’s most famous cake to spa rituals, decadent martinis and a Parisian palace with its own chocolaterie, these hotels prove there is far more to chocolate than dessert.
Jade Mountain, Saint Lucia
At Jade Mountain, chocolate starts long before dessert. More than 2,000 cocoa trees grow across the resort estates, with the beans transformed into chocolate in the in-house laboratory. You can join estate visits, sensory tastings and hands-on chocolate-making classes, while the fun continues in the spa with cacao-infused treatments including the Chocolate Citrus Body Polish and Chocolate Delight. Here, cacao is more than a treat – it’s practically a way of life.
Hotel Sacher Vienna, Austria
Few desserts come with a history quite like the Original Sacher-Torte. Created by Franz Sacher in 1832, the chocolate cake remains at the heart of Hotel Sacher Vienna, where it is still handmade according to the closely guarded recipe. Add coffee, unsweetened whipped cream and suitably grand Viennese surroundings, and Chocolate Week suddenly feels rather civilised.
The Hotel Hershey, Pennsylvania
For anyone who thinks eating chocolate simply isn’t enough, The Hotel Hershey takes things considerably further. Its Chocolate Spa carries cocoa well beyond dessert, with treatments ranging from the Whipped Cocoa Bath to the Chocolate Fondue Body Wrap. At the bar, things take a spirited turn with signature serves including the Hershey’s Kisses Signature Chocolate Martini and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Martini. This is one occasion when being covered in chocolate – and drinking it – is entirely encouraged.
Le Bristol Paris, France
Paris rarely needs help with extravagance, but Le Bristol goes one step further with its own in-house chocolate factory. Part of Les Ateliers du Bristol, the chocolaterie sees the hotel’s artisans transform grand cru cacao into pralines, ganaches and other handmade creations. The result has all the polish and precision one would expect from a Parisian palace.
One Aldwych, London
Chocolate waterfalls, fizzy lifting drinks and an entire roast dinner tucked into a sandwich: One Aldwych’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Afternoon Tea is anything but conventional. Inspired by Roald Dahl’s famously fantastical tale, the menu moves from playful savouries to wonderfully over-the-top sweets, with warm chocolate dip, fluffy candy floss and a hot-chocolate chariot adding to the fun. It’s gloriously nostalgic, deliciously eccentric and proof that afternoon tea needn’t always behave itself.
