Since opening his first shop in 2006, Paul A Young has gone on to win chocolate awards across the globe for his cutting-edge chocolates, unique and distinctive combinations which in themselves are a masterclass in how to achieve the perfect balance of flavours. Talking about his pioneering career to date, the chocolatier identifies certain pioneering endeavours ‘I think we were the first to use savoury ingredients that everyone is familiar with, but to make them into a sweet’. One of Paul’s earliest and most popular savoury/sweet combinations, a sea-salted caramel filled chocolate, continues to top the polls of international chocolate awards and has now well and truly ‘made it into the mainstream,’ as he himself states.
After a frantic ‘Choctober’, diving head first into Chocolate Week, The Chocolate Show in London and Salon du Chocolat in Paris, Paul will be getting set for one of his busiest period in the chocolate calendar – Christmas. However, Paul has been ‘warming up for Christmas since July and it’s full on now,’ he explains. As an artisan chocolatier, Paul and his team from his three London shops make everything by hand. This means it is particularly manic in the build-up to Christmas as production goes into full swing to produce truffles and chocolates in ‘multiples of thousands’.