Adelaide’s best hot chocolate
The humble hot-chocolate takes centre stage for our winter issue.
Winter has struck. The pilled old coats have been dusted off and removed from the hibernation locale in the closet, set for wear in the CityMag office – orange and navy tartan is this reporter’s jacket of choice.
The humble sandwich takes centre stage for our summer issue – and what better way to celebrate summer than with a sandwich?! Make ahead, pack for picnics, bring to the beach or roll out a platter for a party – they really are the ultimate finger food.
The wonderful thing about the sandwich is its ability to transcend the sector – from high end venues (hello Ester’s blood sausage sanga and Fleet’s veal schnitty sanga) to your local corner store and café.
This article first appeared in our 40 Under 40 2024 edition, which is on streets now.
Though many cultural drinks we’ve come across have unknown history, the origins of the hot chocolate seem to be pretty clear. It’s said its origins began in 500BC in Mexico when the Mayans would have ground-up cocoa seeds mixed with water, cornmeal and chilli.
Different to the drink we know today, the hot chocolate has since evolved into a sweet treat with – as we found on our quest around Adelaide – many different variations from cookies and cream to your straight chocolate and whipped cream and marshmallow-infused options.
How we play
If you’re a seasoned CityMag ‘best of’ reader, then skip this par. If you’re new here, let us explain how we play: the Grammable score is ranked from one to five on how we’d post them on Instagram – no post (one), Close Friends story (two), story (three), in a photo dump (four), main post on the grid (five) – we score them as if we’re influencers who post on Instagram daily.
01. When I was in Paris’
$6 from Les Deux Coqs, Rundle Mall Richness: 7.2 Tastiness: 6.2 Fun: 8 Location: 10 Grammable: Story
Emulating that Parisian feel, Cha Cha’s hot chocolate was a delight. But this hot chocolate worked differently: a glass with rich chocolate, a cup of whipped cream and an accompanying bar of dark chocolate and a strawberry. This meant we could add the whipped cream as we pleased to make the hot chocolate as rich and tasty as we liked – tick. This rated highly all around, and we admit, this was Grammable (there’s proof!), but in our case, it was for the wrong, unfortunate reasons.
One of our clumsier reporters took a hearty sip from the deep centre and spilt it all over the table. Oh no! The tasty, yummy sweet treat we wanted was empty, left with nothing but a cup of whipped cream and a big ol’ mess. This was an otherwise perfect hot chocolate drinking experience, had it not been for user error.