News / Chocolate
Couple continue Bristol’s chocolate making heritage
You can watch the chocolate you eat or drink be made in front of your eyes at Ruby Hue.
The new cafe and ‘chocolate bar’ is now open in Finzels Reach, with co-owners Ruth Scanlon and Tom Hughes wearing bespoke clothes made by Tom’s mum, Liz, who is also the in-house barista.
Hot chocolate is available to be made with single-origin chocolate imported from Peru, the Solomon Islands and Uganda, with single-origin bars and cacao nibs also for sale.
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Ruth, originally from London, and Tom, from Cornwall, met while both working in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Mayfair, where Ruth was a pastry chef and Tom a barman.
The pair moved to Bristol in order to open Ruby Hue and hunted high and low for a location before finding this unit in Finzels Reach, the site of a former sugar refinery before it was a brewery.
Inside Ruby Hue in Finzels Reach, where you can watch the chocolate being made – photo: Martin Booth
Ruby Hue is described as “independent, ethical bean-to-bar chocolate makers proud to be a part of the craft chocolate revolution raging against unethical, untraceable commodity cacao”.
On a recent morning in only their second week of opening, Ruth said that customers have so far been really interested in seeing how the chocolate is made and then, of course, tasting it.
“We are very open,” said Ruth. “We want people to ask questions. Being able to sit at the chocolate bar, customers can see how chocolate is made.
“I think when most people eat chocolate, they don’t think about where it’s from at all. They don’t think about the process or where it’s come from, so we want to spark interest in that as well as having a delicious product.
“Chocolates can taste so different. We want to be able to show the nuance in each different bean and also get the story of the cacao industry out there, because it’s not a great industry.”
Hot chocolate at Ruby Hue – photo: Martin Booth
Tom and Ruth said that the sort of chocolate making that they are doing at Ruby Hue can be compared to speciality coffee roasting, with their own coffee made by Radical Roasters in Easton.
Like Left Handed Giant brewpub a few hundred yards down Hawkins Lane, the pair are pleased to be able to bring producing back to this corner of Bristol.
Everything is made in-house here, with liquid chocolate coming out of a tempering machine, and a stone grinder rotating while grinding the cacao nibs and sugar.
On the counter, brownies and madeleines are made from Ruby Hue’s own chocolate, with the hot chocolate served with a variety of milks and extras including homemade marshmallows as big as a baby’s fist.
“We are doing our thing and people are appreciating it,” Tom said. “That is a real privilege.”
The hand painted menu at Ruby Hue – photo: Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
- Behind the scenes: The creation of Bristol24/7’s chocolate cover
- New home for popular chocolate cafe
- 8 stories about Bristol’s chocolate history
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