William Crossley finds out how a request for a Christmas treat brought a taste of chocolate heaven to an Oxfordshire market town

In the mid-1990s Nigel Rumsey was the head pastry chef at New College in Oxford when a colleague in the kitchen asked him if he could make something sweet as a present for his family one Christmas.

“I said ‘I can do some chocolates’. I had half-a-dozen recipes and so I made these chocolates and thought I’d make enough for my family as well. My sister-in-law has a hairdresser’s and she said ‘they’re good, maybe I could sell some in the shop’.

“So we bagged some up, put a pretty Christmas ribbon on and put them in her shop. We got such good feedback from her customers and after Christmas my colleague at the college said ‘my family went nuts over your chocolates’.

“At that point, I thought ‘we might have something here’.”

Inspired by the success of his festive experiment, Nigel founded a business that today has a chocolaterie in Thame and another in the Buckinghamshire town of Wendover, and supplies many Oxford University colleges with after-dinner chocolates bearing their crests.

Nigel, who also worked as the head pastry chef at the Bear Hotel in Woodstock for 10 years and learned his craft at top hotels in London and Bermuda, launched Rumsey’s Handmade Chocolates on a small scale, making chocolates at his home in Aylesbury. He sold them at craft fairs, but as he made contacts through the fairs and was offered work by restaurants, he found he was working flat out on his days off from New College to keep up with demand.

“I asked New College if I could go down to a four-day week and they said ‘no problem’, so I’m really thankful to the college, because they gave me huge backing at that time. As the business grew I needed another day and the college said ‘yes’ to a three-day week, but after a few months I decided with my wife Mary to bite the bullet. We extended the kitchen at home and I went full-time.”

People would often call at the house and ask to buy chocolates and Nigel noticed that they were fascinated when they came into the kitchen and saw him at work. He and Mary, who had given up her teaching career to handle the administration side of the business, decided to look for premises they could let people see chocolates being made and buy chocolate, tea and coffee and enjoy cakes created using Nigel’s range of skills as a pastry chef.

The former NatWest Bank in Wendover was available and they took on the lease in 2002. Nigel set up his kitchen in the vault, while Mary, inspired by the chocolaterie in the movie Chocolat, based on the novel by Joanne Harris, oversaw the conversion of the former banking hall into a shop and restaurant.

The chocolaterie in Thame followed four years later, again with an ambience Nigel says is “designed to put a smile on your face”.

Daughter-in-law Kate Rumsey, who has just joined the family firm as a business development manager after working in marketing for multinational Unilever, added: “It’s so lovely when you see people come in for the first time and their reaction when they see all the cakes and the chefs making chocolate. It’s important to have the theatres in both shops, because all the chocolates are handmade. People can see the intricate decorative work, that it’s not a big production line, and that it takes time.”

Both shops use produce from other local family businesses, including Newitt’s Butchers and the Cottage Bakery in Thame.

The family are now working on plans to expand the chocolaterie in Thame, with a rear extension to provide a new production area to supplement the kitchen in Wendover as well as more space for chocolate parties and courses, which are increasingly popular with chocolate lovers of all ages.

Nigel said: “We get these little six- and seven-year-olds dolled up in an apron and a hat – it looks really good – and it’s surprising what they produce, some of them are really creative. They just go to town.”

* Rumsey’s Chocolaterie in Thame is at 8 Upper High Street and is open seven days a week. For more information and to learn more about the range of chocolates or to buy online, see rumseys.co.uk

Where the magic happens:

A feature of both chocolateries is a ‘theatre’ kitchen where customers can see members of Nigel’s seven-strong team of pastry chefs making a mouthwatering selection of chocolates by hand.

When I visited the chocolaterie in Thame, Joanna Webb, from Haddenham, and Kieran Alejo Blanco, who lives a stone’s throw from the shop, were turning out college chocolates and Christmas-themed chocolates, decorated with orange peel and pistachios.

I was invited to try my hand at making chocolate buttons, decorated with orange peel and pistachios, and some holly leaves with white chocolate berries but concluded I would need some intensive training in the use of a piping bag filled with chocolate if I was ever going to make the grade…

Back at the office, my efforts got 10 out of 10 for flavour, thanks to the Rumsey’s team, but 0 out of 10 for artistic impression.