London’s best hot chocolates

Despite its competitive location on the edge of Borough Market, Hotel Chocolat’s Rabot cafe, bar and shop is often bustling with customers seeking a chocolate fix. Hot chocolates here are made with flakes of real chocolate, which is sourced from a cacao farm in Saint Lucia. Variations range from Vanilla-White to 100% Dark, plus you can add mint, chilli and salted caramel, too. With warm lighting and dark wooden accents, this is the ultimate cosy spot to sip a hot chocolate and watch the world go by.

Founder of Dark Sugars, Nyanga spent three years in South America and West Africa researching cocoa before she brought a different kind of heat to Brick Lane with her bright and inviting corner shop. This spot was so successful that she went on to open an ice cream parlour and a four-storey flagship shop in Greenwich. Her hot chocolates are a seductively thick blend of extra brute cocoa with single origin chocolate. Each cup is then piled high with dark, milk and white chocolate shavings. If you prefer yours to hit a little harder, then opt for the Pitch Black or chilli versions. And for the full-blown addicts, there’s even a kit that you can take home…

Paul A Young is a pretty big deal in the chocolate world. The former head pastry chef for Marco Pierre White at Quo Vadis and Criterion opened his first shop on Camden Passage in 2006 and has won an extensive amount of industry awards ever since. He’s even released a cookbook, Adventures With Chocolate, and can often be seen on television demonstrating some of his divine recipes. With such accolades behind him, you can only imagine how dreamy his hot chocolate is. Choose between a rich classic cup or the aromatic Aztec that is a heady mix of ground cinnamon, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and 70% dark chocolate.

This brand’s German founder, Jens Knoop opened his first outpost in Rye in Sussex. The brand now boasts several locations all over the UK (and plans to open a whole lot more), and is stocked in big name stores including Selfridges. Knoops boasts a very distinctive concept, which revolves around a process coined Knoopology, by which customers are encouraged to experiment with different percentages of chocolate and add their own preferred flavours, from chilli and orange to sea salt. If you’ve bought your own Knoops chocolate flakes, there are recipes online to help you create your ultimate blend at home. And if you’re craving a fix in summer, Knoops offer iced chocolate and milkshakes, too.

If there was such thing as a member’s club for chocolate, Haute Dolci would be it. The whole concept is to make dessert a hedonistic experience, so you can build your own dishes and even work your way up a loyalty programme, for which you get rewarded with actual charms. The menu features classic white and milk, while the signature collection includes orange, caramel and black forest variations. We know it’s not technically a hot chocolate, but Haute Dolci also offers an impressive fondue platter featuring cloud-like marshmallows, ruby red strawberries and Belgian waffle bites that you can dip in the molten chocolate…