A place where even Willy Wonka would unquestionably either faint at once after entering or would never leave has been opened in Budapest. For if he only tries one kind of chocolate each day, it would still take him ten years to get to the end of what the shop has to offer.
If you walk across Chain Bridge from Pest to Buda either because there’s still good weather or just because it’s good to get across bridges, and you stop in Clark Ádám Square to take a good look at the Funicular, and you take a bus (or walk, if you don’t worry about the smog) through the tunnel, you’ll see a rare sight. About two minutes later, as you enter Pauler Street, the mecca of cocoa beans, the non plus ultra for the sweet-toothed, the first “chocolatarium” of Budapest enters into your line of sight. We’d better get used to the coinage “chocolatarium” as presumably it will be pronounced more and more by a growing number of people.
The new word has been formed by Chococo, that opened just a few days ago, in order to define itself and the FACT, with all capital letters, that here each and every thing revolves around chocolate. Surely enough, there are some really exquisite drinks, coffees, teas, but these merely form a modest background to the star of the shop. Saying that the selection of chocolates is imposing is an understatement. The owners, Dóra Balogh and Imre Kocsis, who already introduced himself with opening the Csokoládé Outlet in Bródy Sándor Street two years ago, offer more than 3000 (!) types of sweets whose main ingredient is chocolate. OK, one more time, to make sure our eyes didn’t fail us the first time around: 3000 different types of chocolate!
”Chocolate at all costs” – this is the motto of Chococo, and it might as well sound odd when hearing it first, actually it completely describes the philosophy of the owners and the shop. In other words, anyone can find the sweets they can afford due to the broad range of prices, and the type of chocolate you can’t buy in Budapest in here does practically not exist. So those very picky had better find themselves a new sport – as for chocolate at least.
The atmosphere of the shop summons the pre-war times, but the interior designers in charge of its design (Geppetto studio) put a little twist in things, so the feeling can be likened to that of a traditional confectionary store with its atmosphere considered conservative nowadays, but it also projects the modern and pulsating urban eclecticism. Now, this is one of the things that makes Budapest such a good place, and this is what could make it even better.
If you visit the shop (and you will, because there’s really no need to find an excuse to do so, it’ll come naturally), be prepared to spend a long time inside even if you entered with a clear idea of what you wanted to buy. This is simply the same as catching a cold in cold weather, provided you don’t wear enough clothes: inevitable. We could share with the reader that there are one-meter-long chocolates, bio chocolates, completely sugar-free ones, others made for the lactose-intolerant, and again others with 100% cocoa content, then those with lemon balm, or with hot pepper, or savoury ones, but the truth is that it would be impossible to enumerate all of them in the foreseeable future. So suit up, and head to Pauler Street!
Oh, yes, very important: good chocolate is not fattening, what’s more, it’s specifically beneficial to your health. Besides, it’s pretty cool when you can show off how up-to-date you are on current chocolate trends – which knowledge, by the way, can be updated with great expertise, with open-mouthed astonishment, and, of course, with happy smiles in the shop. You get it, right?
