Prestat Truffle Selection

I picked up this little bag of fresh truffles from Prestat’s brightly coloured shop in central London. Having never tried any of their fresh chocolates, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect – my Prestat experience to date has been based purely on their bars.

In a very scientific manner, I asked the assistant for two of each chocolates from the top row of the display. I didn’t bother making notes as to what they were, and opted to have them all put into a single bag together in order to save a few fractions of a second between the “buying” and “eating” parts of the review process.

Probably not the best idea when you’re mixing pale pink white chocolate truffles in the same bag as dark chocolate cocoa-dusted ones…

The result may be a little messy, with dark chocolate truffles scarred with icing sugar, and dirty cocoa powder marks on the pristine pink and white truffles, but it’s the taste that counts. And the taste is good.

The centres are smooth, light and taste perfectly fresh. There’s a good variety of flavours going on, but nothing is too strong. There’s nothing challenging here – the flavours are all very down to earth and traditional, but they’re well made with fresh ingredients.

I particularly enjoyed the dark chocolate truffles, especially Prestat’s signature ‘Napolean III’ – a simple, unenrobed dark chocolate ganache, dusted in cocoa powder. It has a perfect level of sweetness, and you can actually taste the ingredients. The fresh cream comes through as well as the rich, dark cocoa.

So all in all, a very enjoyable selection. Being a more traditional retailer, the Prestat selection doesn’t perhaps have some of the flair or originality of high end chocolatiers like Paul A. Young or William Curley. But what it does, it does well.

I’d recommend picking these fresh chocolates over the pre-packaged bars for sale in the shop every time (and you can buy the bars from places like Waitrose anyway). But if you’re buying them as a gift, be sure to ask for them to be put into a box, rather than thrown into a bag!

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