Mast Brothers chocolate is coming to London

The Mast Brothers are back to launch a brand new brewed chocolate at their Ace Hotel takeover this Christmas. They’re also setting up permanently in Shoreditch from February next year.

Mast Brothers chocolate focuses on meticulously sourced, complex cacao that’s delicately roasted, stone ground and beautifully aged. It’s the chocolate of choice for many of the world’s greatest chefs, including Thomas Keller and Daniel Humm. The New York Times said of the Brooklyn-based company:

“It has been at the cutting edge of the craft food movement from the start.”

The brothers will lead cuppings and tastings on the first three Saturdays of December and Bulldog Edition offers a ‘not-your-mama's-cocoa boozy hot chocolate’ at their coffee counter throughout the Christmas period. Bulldog’s infamous doughnuts, served every day at 10.30am, will also get a Mast makeover for the duration. Rumoured flavours include sea salt chocolate with caramel ganache.

Brewed chocolate is the newest chapter in the Mast Brothers’ story, and they’re teaming up with Ace Hotel and Bulldog Edition to introduce it to London. This beverage is more than a hot chocolate, it’s made with freshly roasted, ground cocoa nibs steeped with water, and served in hot or cold iterations. Like their chocolate bars, Mast Brothers' brewed chocolate is intensely fruity and complex, drawing direct connection back to the cacao plant.

The brothers behind Mast Brothers’ Chocolate are Iowa-raised, but Brooklyn, with its entrepreneurial, artisanal-everything vibe, is their spiritual home. The pair started experimenting with chocolate there in 2006 and they’ve never looked back. Today, their bean-to-bar chocolate is found at well-curated markets worldwide and they have published a book: Mast Brothers’ Chocolate: A family cookbook.

The Mast Brothers’ will set up shop at Ace's coffee outpost, Bulldog Edition, before settling in at their new permanent Shoreditch home in February 2015. Their new factory on Redchurch Street will house 2000 square feet of chocolate production, retail, brewed chocolate, confections and seasonal events. It is an exciting development for British gastronomy to welcome The Mast Brothers’ to London.

By Tom Evans