Review: Melbourne Market, Chocolate, Coffee, and Doughnut Tour
Please note: Chocoholic Tours no longer operates this tour. You may like to visit the chocolate shops, food outlets, and cafes covered in this review yourself, or browse the available Melbourne walking tours here.
It’s the trifecta of Melbourne treats: great coffee, fine chocolate, and plump jam doughnuts.
They’re all firm favourites with Melburnians. So when I received an email inviting me to review Chocoholic Tours’ new Melbourne Chocolate, Coffee, and Doughnut Tour, I almost dislocated a thumb in my haste to reply in the affirmative!
Chocoholic Tours has been operating walking tours in Melbourne for two decades. This new tour takes guests on a meander through the CBD’s maze of laneways and arcades, while also incorporating a guided visit to the Queen Victoria Market. It promises to tempt tastebuds with a tsunami of sacchariferous sensations.
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We meet our guide Jess at the Block Arcade — a Melbourne icon and home to upscale boutiques, gorgeous galleries, and bustling cafes. Introductions out of the way, the tour begins with a visit to Haigh’s Chocolates. This family run company was founded in Adelaide in 1915 and continues to sell the finest quality Swiss-style chocolate.
I had no idea there was a ‘proper’ way to eat chocolate. You just shove it in your gob, right? Apparently not, according to Jess, who runs us through the finer points of chocolate tasting with some samples of Haigh’s beautiful dark and milk couverture chocolate. To fully appreciate the flavour and quality of a piece of chocolate, it should be held in the mouth and swirled around by the tongue. It’s a bit like tasting wine, but fortunately you aren’t required to spit it out.
After some free time to shop at Haigh’s (to take advantage of the 10 percent discount offered to tour guests), we head off to our next destination — lovely Chocomama in the Royal Arcade — the oldest surviving shopping mall in Australia. Jess dishes out samples of their signature Melbourne praline block, which is filled (perhaps unsurprisingly) with coffee ganache. That’s quickly followed by pieces of the Hosier Lane Block — a nod to the heavily graffitied and much loved laneway of the same name.
As I ponder the realisation that chocolate-coated pretzels are actually delicious (who knew?), the words of a friendly Big Issue vendor ring out in the Bourke Street Mall. ‘Hello, it’s the chocolate tour! You know you shouldn’t be here if you’re meant to be on a diet!’ How did he know?
We take advantage of Melbourne’s free CBD tram zone to travel a few blocks to Guildford Lane. Hidden away in a former furniture warehouse — many locals don’t even know it’s there — is Krimper Cafe. Here, our effervescent host May outlines the process of brewing cold press coffee. The ice-cold espresso gives caffeine addicts a refreshing way to get their fix during the heat of summer.
Another short tram journey brings us to the famous Queen Victoria Market. Founded in 1878, the market has around 700 stalls and attracts upwards of 10 million visitors a year — making it one of Melbourne’s most popular attractions. Tourists mingle with inner-city residents shopping for fresh produce, smallgoods, meat and fish, gifts, clothing, home decor, and more. String Bean Alley is the newest section of the market and houses traders in repurposed shipping containers.
We navigate our way through the crowds to the uber popular American Doughnut Kitchen. Offices in this part of town are known to dispatch a ‘doughnut runner’ when afternoon energy levels flag. Three generations of the same family have operated this doughnut van since 1950, and the recipe hasn’t changed. The doughnuts are cooked on-site and sold fresh, and the sweet smell of jam-filled, deep-fried doughy goodness hangs in the air. Long queues are the norm and it’s not hard to work out why; the doughnuts are amazing!
The tour is rounded out with a market coffee and pastry, and we find room to squeeze in one final sample — a piece of exquisite, locally made Monsieur Truffe organic chocolate.
Some of the group take the opportunity to stay and explore the market further, while others (myself included) make their way back into the centre of town. We’re all fuelled up on sugar and keen to discover more of Melbourne’s sweet side.
The writer travelled as a guest of Chocoholic Tours.
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Additional images: Bigstock
About the writer
Louise Reynolds made up her mind at the age of about four that she would one day travel the world — and has so far visited around 30 countries across five continents and the Pacific. A hopeless Francophile, she has a particular love for France, its language, and pretty much all things French. Louise’s favourite way to see the world is on foot and her boots have taken her walking on famous trails in Europe, South America, and New Zealand. She also has a passion for her home state of Victoria and loves exploring its diverse regions.
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