If the previous posts featuring gift suggestions (hampers and restaurant vouchers) aren’t what you’re after, then how about buying your foodie gifts from a range of Bristol-based companies offering treats for those with a sweet tooth?
Chocolate lovers should speak to Frances Cooley who has two strings to her bow: cake company Clifton Cakes, and also the fabulous Choc Chic. Her range of chocolate shoes and handbags are not only stocked at Clifton’s Arch Hou
se Deli, but are also available in Liberty’s, Harvey Nichols and Bentalls – and are part of the afternoon tea at London’s Hyatt Regency.
All of her chocolate bags and shoes are handmade and decorated in Belgian chocolate. Her collections come in dark, milk, white and orange chocolate, and are decorated in a range of styles, colours and flavours.
If you want something even more unique than the ranges offered on her website, Frances can customise the labels inside the shoe, or even recreate your favourite shoes in chocolate!
In addition, she offers chocolate workshops on St Georges Road – take a look at her website for upcoming course dates and themes.
If you’d rather go for a classic box of chocolate, head to the Guilbert’s website. All chocolates created by the company are handmade and hand-dipped…and they’re a bit of a Bristol institution, having now been in existence for 100 years.
To celebrate their 100 year anniversary, they’ve created a range of 5 limited edition 575g chocolate selections, each containing a variety of their best assorted chocolates from the last 100 years, and presented in a tin depicting a scene from Bristol, including Park Street and the Suspension Bridge. The perfect gift for local chocolate lovers.
Alternatively, head to Meme Chocolat in Clifton Village, whose stockists include Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Fortnum & Mason. Around 150 different chocolates are handmade by a small team in the Somerset village of Evercreech, and include seasonal specials.
Customers can choose from a large variety of loose chocolates on display in the cafe, or can opt for various pre-packed chocolate gifts, which include seasonal ranges.
Rather than going for the standard box of chocolate or tin of biscuits option, how about award-winning chocolate brownies? Serious Treats won a Taste Of The West award in 2009 and a Great Taste Award in 2010, and are a regular feature at Bristol’s Love Food Festival. Their brownies are made to order and posted, and are available in a range of sizes: 1, 6, 12 or 20 brownies, delivered in a gift box with a choice of coloured ribbon and a handwritten gift message for the recipient.
And of course, who can forget Bristol’s wide range of cupcakes, which also make perfect gifts? Swinky Sweets, the Beach House Bakery, Kiss Me Cake, Clifton Cakes and House of Cupcakes are just a few of the local companies that offer these popular confections…
If there’s anything else that you feel should be added to the above selection, please do let me know! 🙂
There are some fantastic insider Bristol tips here – thanks very much!
I produce the BBC Food blog and I thought that you might be interested in some of these ideas for making your own gifts too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2010/11/homemade-…
Hi Ramona – thanks for the comment!
I've just had a look at the BBC Food blog post that you linked to – some fantastic ideas. I particularly like the idea of the mulled wine kit…although I may end up making a variation on this and producing a mulled cider kit for a cider-lover that I'm buying for 🙂