Montezuma's Chocolates


Award winning British chocolate.
Ex-lawyers turned chocolate entrepreneurs, Helen and Simon Pattinson, founded Montezumas in 2000 with one little chocolate machine and one shop in Brighton.
When Montezuma's husband and wife founders Helen and Simon Pattinson left lives as City lawyers they never imagined that in 2007 they would have founded one of the UK's most talked about quality chocolate companies.
Today Montezuma's have a fantastic production and retail team working hard to make Montezuma's the UK's leading quality chocolate maker. As Rick Stein said about us "food obsession at its best".
The following is Helen's potted history of how they came to develop Montezuma's.
"It seems incredible that just a few years ago the smell of chocolate was one of the things that made Simon and I want to abandon our careers in the law despite the fact we had spent many years studying to become well paid solicitors in a large law firm in London.
Having become totally disillusioned with London, law and all the trappings of a money dominated life, we resigned from our jobs, sold our Putney house and put all our possessions into storage, leaving for South America virtually on the next plane.
We cannot remember why South America attracted us but I think it was probably the huge diversity of climates, cultures and landscapes . . . we were not disappointed.
Although we had left the UK with a vague notion that we would be inspired and find a new direction in life, I dont think we ever imagined that this would really be the case. We both had a long term love of chocolate but the chocolate business was not something we had considered until we went to a little town in the middle of the Argentinean lake district where a large German population ran several very exciting chocolate shops.
When we reached Venezuela a couple of months later and accidentally ended up staying on a cocoa plantation, we both became fascinated at the complexity of cultivating quality cocoa.
We experienced cocoa being grown, harvested and processed into cocoa liquor, and soon realised that there was a lot more to chocolate than at first meets the eye.
Having seen the little cocoa tree and tasted all varieties of the eventual product in Argentina, we could think of little else.
Almost a year to the day that we returned from our travels, we opened our first store in Brighton, with more than 200 products ranging from organic chocolate lollies to huge boxes filled with chunky truffles. I only have to wander into one of our stores and listen to the customers comments to know that we have made the right choice."
Contact Information
Tel: 0207 539 9208
Mobile:
Fax:
Skype:
E-Mail: mailorder@montezumas.co.uk
Website: www.montezumas.co.uk
Address: 51 Brushfield Street
Spitalfields
London
E1 6AA
United Kingdom
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