Benoit Chocolats Cholet

Caramandes, and the counter built around them

Chocolate is the whole subject here: bonbons, pralines, pâtes de fruits, confiseries, gift boxes and the house signature, Caramandes. Created in 2008, they are triangular sheets of toasted almond slivers caramelised with salted butter and then enrobed in chocolate, shaped by hand one at a time, and they have collected recognition as far away as Japan. The Cholet address is the newest boutique of Benoit Chocolats, the artisan chocolatier founded in Angers in 1975, and it took over a shop that had traded in the town for fourteen years under the name Artisan passionné. The making stays in the Angers workshop, so Cholet works as a retail counter rather than a laboratory you can watch through glass, and the range arrives complete rather than being finished on site.

A chocolatier's boutique, not a salon de thé

It helps to know the format before walking in. There is no bread, no viennoiserie, no sandwich board and no café service. The room is arranged around chocolate and confectionery, with staff whose job is to steer a choice rather than take an order. The house works with noble cocoa crus and natural ingredients and talks about aromatic finesse rather than volume, which shows in a range that stays deliberately narrow: chocolate bonbons, pralines, pâtes de fruits, seasonal confiseries and boxes built to be given. Benoit Chocolats is a Relais Desserts member boutique, and Cholet carries the same range as the houses in Angers and in the Marais in Paris. Corporate and collective orders are part of the trade too, assembled from Caramandes, chocolates and confiseries.

Buy the Caramandes, then a seasonal box

The first purchase should be Caramandes, because everything else in the shop is measured against them: almond, salted-butter caramel and chocolate in a piece thin enough to snap. From there the choice is about occasion. A mixed box of pralines and pâtes de fruits covers most gifts, while the seasonal ranges, including the Saint-Valentin selection, are where the house puts its newer work. If you are buying for yourself, ask for a small assortment across categories rather than a single flavour, since the range is built to be tasted in contrast. This is a stop with a purpose behind it, a box or a gift or one house specialty, rather than a seat and a coffee.