Gareth James Chocolatier – chocolate review

Sep 22, 2010

Like the look of this box of chocs? You’ve come to the right place then. Whilst visiting Tynemouth near Newcastle over the summer, I popped in to Gareth James’ new chocolate shop (Facebook fanpage here). There isn’t a huge range at the moment, but after picking a handful of truffles and pralines and an intriguing tonka bean truffle, I was over the moon. What’s a tonka bean truffle taste like you ask? Smooth, a little marzipan, vanilla and cinammon like. Delicious. And what is a tonka bean? It’s a long and thin wrinkly bean native to South America. According to Wikipedia, they are banned in US food, but over in the UK we can go wild with ’em. If you happen to be up north, do make the diversion to this chocolatier shop!