Notes on chocolate: sweet surprises on an outing to Canterbury

I am in Canterbury. My friend Sarah comes to meet me off the train in a bobble hat. She has come back to England after 18 years in America: New York, Louisville and latterly, Austin. Sarah and I always meet in the most random of places and this time it’s because I took a few days out, writing, in Margate, which was as suitably rundown English seasidey as I had hoped.

Margate, for my international readers, is 30 minutes from Canterbury by train. I didn’t find any chocolate in Margate. I ask where Madame Oiseau’s chocolate is from. ‘Belgium,’ I’m told. This always makes me laugh… Sarah takes me to the Goods Shed by the station, which is stuffed full of stallholders selling delicious food and one of them persuades me to try a non alcoholic mulled cider, which I think of long after the slurping stops.

Canterbury, like York, is a walled city. It lends itself to wandering and, after we have seen King’s School (Britain’s oldest public school, dating back to 597), we head to Madame Oiseau , a chocolatier, a mere shilling’s throw away. The chocolate shop has stood here for a comparatively short 20 years, no mean feat for an independent business.

I ask where the chocolate is from. ‘Belgium,’ I’m told. This always makes me laugh since no cocoa is grown in Belgium (nor, for that matter, Switzerland). But a lot of couverture is made and exported from there. I buy a small box of mixed chocolates. I have a feeling I will like the peanut pralines, so I get two, one in dark and one in milk, alongside liqueur cherries, caramels and marzipans.

On the train back to Margate, I open the box. The peanut pralines are indeed my favourites. Sadly, you can’t select your own online (prices start at £17 for a small pre mixed box), but they might be worth a trip to Canterbury. Follow Annalisa on X @AnnalisaB.