An ice-cream maker with a genius for the dark stuff

Like many great discoveries, Venchi was uncovered quite serendipitously. We were in search of ice-cream in Covent Garden and almost tripped over the ‘crowd control’ cord outside. My dad used to be an ice-cream maker so, since he died, buying ice-cream has been a bittersweet (and often disappointing) experience for me. But Venchi was all joy.

For one, the ice-cream (I’m fussy) is expensive, but amazing. For two, there is a tap, which pours forth molten chocolate to coat the cones’ tops – but you can also ask for a small cup to spoon-feed yourself with. For three, I discovered later, Venchi makes amazing chocolate spread (as detailed three weeks ago). And four, it’s been making superb chocolate for over 100 years.

There are some terrific bars – I’m looking at you Fine Milk Chocolate Block with hazelnuts (£9), so thick it could probably stop a car from rolling downhill. Then there are individually wrapped chocolates – in store only – to buy singly by weight in a pick ’n’ mix type arrangement. This is handy, not only for experimentation purposes, but also if you really only fancy one goddam-fine chocolate.

The one to go for is the Chocaviar Pistachio. Look for the chunky square, bright-green foil wrap. Inside it’s all milk chocolate, pistachio cream and hazelnut gianduja with pistachio, hazelnuts and almond bits, topped with buttery caramel flakes. Just one costs about £1.80 (online you have to buy a 300g bag for £19.50), but in terms of chocolate I’ll fight you to find a better use of £2.