Spied Out: The Best Chocolate Shots

A pure, unadorned chocolate shot, exulting at his glorified existence. We salute you, sir.

There is a scene in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where 'that great big greedy nincompoop' Augustus Gloop is so busy guzzling a river of molten chocolate that he falls in, whereupon his bulky frame is sucked up into a tube and becomes ignominiously wedged therein. The Spy realises that this portly lad was probably not intended as a positive role-model of childhood gluttony, but in his own tender years had considerable sympathy with a youth so fixated by the idea of such an unctuous, gloopy lake of joy. Cleopatra may have bathed in asses' milk, but the Spy suspects that if melted chocolate had been available, she would have ditched that calcium-rich goodie-goodie of the dairy world faster than she threw over Julius Caesar for Mark Anthony. So, while coquettish blizzards are still tickling the fens with their feathered flakes despite the sunshine, a bar of the brown stuff might not be quite enough, but thanks to the Spy, you too can indulge your inner-Gloop with a sneaky shot of warm, melted chocolate...

1. Chocolat Chocolat is a piece of handmade chocolate heaven, with excitingly flavoured, rippled slabs stacked along the walls in baskets and smaller nubbley lumps lined up on plates in the middle of the shop. Glass jars stand on the counter by the door, swirling the pure melted chocolate and cream that are the only ingredients in their shots. Nip in for a little cup of molten joy - the best of the bunch.

Ethereal shoppers cannot resist the temptation of the chocolate shots...

2. A similar set-up can be found in Benets, where the glass jar is perched high up on the counter, just above the trays of exciting-looking jammy biscuits and banana flapjack cakes. You can either cart away your spoils in triumph, else enjoy the luxury of drinking your chocolate in the warmth of the cafe, where it is decanted into espresso cups with a biscuit resting nonchalantly on the saucer. Classy and delicious.

  Note the godly hand siphoning off the Spy's very own chocolate shot.

 Just in case a cup of melted chocolate wasn't sweet enough, have a biscuit on the side...

3. The Italian restaurant/deli Carluccio's favours a darker, thicker beast, so dense that a spoon might be stood up in it. However, it might be a question of taste, but the Spy finds the Italian side of the chocolate shot market a little more bitter and a little less pure in its flavour, possibly because of the amount of cornflour that has been added to the mixture. The Spy cannot say for certain that Carluccio's uses this ingredient, since the little cup appears mysteriously from some inner sanctum behind the counter (no swirly glass jar then), but the chocolate shot at Savino's is a very similar animal, and the Spy knows for certain that this one definitely contains said powdery gloopifier. He would like to pretend that he gained this information by sneaking sneakily onto the premises at the dead of night and photographing the recipe with his miniature button-hole spy camera, but the reality is that he knows because his shot was mixed up in front of him, alchemist-style, with powders and potions from a row of exciting little silver pots hidden behind the counter. Which is nearly as exciting...

Chocolate shot with suitably heart-adorned backdrop. The Spy's sole, curmudgeonly concession to the fact that Valentine's Day is upon us, so make the most of it.