When she was a schoolgirl, chocolate-loving Zara Narracott’s friends joked that she would one day become the next Willy Wonka. They also said she was the girl most likely to give Cadbury a run for its money.
At the time, Zara didn’t have any grand plans to open a chocolate factory and follow in the footsteps of either Wonka or Cadbury. It wasn’t until she finished university that the penny finally dropped and she realised running a chocolate shop might not be such a bad idea after all.
“It was evidently more obvious to others than it was to me,” says Zara, who has run Zara’s Chocolate on North Street, Southville, since 2013. “I’ve always been a complete chocoholic and chocolate obsessed but I don’t think it ever really occurred to me as career prospect when I was at school.
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“As a kid, I would hear people wanting to be doctors, lawyers and teachers but I never thought of opening a luxury chocolate business. But then there wasn’t really a small chocolate shop in Bristol that would inspire me to at the time.”
Once she decided on a career in chocolate, Zara completed the École Chocolat Professional Chocolatier Programme and began to experiment in her Bristol home kitchen. It was then that she started to fuse different flavours and explored unique pairings to combine with high quality chocolate - often asking friends and family to be her grateful guinea pigs to taste her Wonka-esque creations.
After selling her chocolates at weekend markets around the city, she finally found a permanent site. Sharing the North Street site with a local florist, Zara’s Chocolates opened in 2013 and it has firmly established itself as one of the city’s go-to places for high-end chocolates.
With a small team that includes head chocolatier Helen Jones, Zara’s Chocolates makes everything in small batches and it’s all handmade. This year’s Easter range has just been launched and it’s the first time the shop has been open in April for two years due to the pandemic, during which time Zara increased the online side of the business.
When I speak to Zara, she’s busy sorting the new Easter products in time for half-term. They include a £20 Hot Cross Bun Egg decorated with red poppies, a limited edition Sophie Long Art ‘chocolate balloon bar’ for £5 and, for £21, a colourful egg box with six filled milk chocolate eggs, each wrapped in coloured foil.
“Because it’s always so busy, I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Easter to be honest,” laughs Sophie. “But I do generally look forward to it more than Christmas - it’s just a bit more whimsical and fun and everyone’s after Easter eggs.”
Busy as it is, Zara is clearly excited by the new range, many of which are limited and available from certain days due to her small team trying to keep up with demand. It’s also the first Easter for two years the shop has been able to open fully, which adds to the excitement for both Zara and the customers.
“It’s really nice to see everything on the shelves again. We’ve just got everything out and they are flying off the shelves already!
“My favourite is the egg box with half a dozen filled chocolate eggs - they have a classic fondant filling with tangy passion fruit gel as the yolk which is delicious. The other fillings include an orange and marshmallow caramel one, and hazelnut and caramel.
“We’ve got classic plain eggs made from milk or dark chocolate but we also have an oat milk one this year. There are also some beautifully designed eggs made by our head chocolatier Helen - they have gorgeous floral designs with poppies, cherry blossom and yellow meadows.
“Some have hot cross bun spice praline, some have dried fruits and nuts in them. One has layers of caramel in a milk chocolate shell and a puffed rice and popping candy layer, too.”
With prices ranging from £2.50 for egg-shaped lollies to £20 for the larger eggs, these are obviously more expensive than your average supermarket Easter treat. Prices are more comparable to the high-end chocolate shops and chains but Zara says her loyal customers know they are paying for bespoke products that use the very best ingredients and take a lot of time to make.
“We’re lucky in that we’ve got a good customer base and we just offer something a little bit different that’s beautifully designed and a little more unusual. A lot of thought has gone into them and they definitely stand out from the ones on the supermarket shelves.
“We’ve been around for almost ten years now so our customers know what goes into them and the amount of work and time and they appreciate the detail. I’m still surprised how much support we get from the local customers - we get so bogged down in the day-to-day stuff that it’s easy to forget sometimes but when I sit down and think and how far we’ve come since we opened, it’s lovely.”
Like all small independent businesses, Zara’s Chocolates has had a tough couple of years due to Covid, not least because the popular chocolate workshops had to stop. The workshops are back now and the shop is fully open again, but Zara says the pandemic meant her business was forced to change the way it did things.
“I was overwhelmed by how supportive people were over the past two years when everything went a bit mad. People were really appreciative that we were still there and they were still able to send nice treats to friends and family they weren’t able to see in person.
“The shop wasn’t open much but we did continue to operate online - the first lockdown was Easter so we tried to get as many eggs out and I was driving around Bristol delivering up to 9pm. But it was nice to bring a little moment of excitement to people and a lot of people appreciated that.
“The past two years has changed how we operate. We are getting a lot more online orders and we are having to get things online earlier to allow people to pre-order.
“We have a lot of orders to get through and we have two sides of the business now. One side looks like an Amazon depot dealing with online orders and the other is the shop!”
And for a self-confessed chocoholic, working with such delicious ingredients day in, day out, must be tough so how does Zara stop herself from eating on the job? Many chocolate lovers would certainly end up looking more like greedy Augustus Gloop than skinny Charlie Bucket.
“I still eat quite a lot of chocolate but I’m always rushing around so I’m lucky,” laughs Zara. “I’m sure my metabolism will catch up with me one day though!”
Zara’s Chocolates is at 200 North Street, Southville, Bristol, BS3 1JF. Tel: 0117 9636956. zaraschocolates.com
