Melbourne has a good chocolate scene, but a much better coffee scene. This is lost on me, since I don’t care for coffee. But because my partner does, we spent a lot of time searching out for good coffees everywhere we go, which, frankly, is not hard at all in Melbourne. The vast majority of time the coffee shop doesn’t have good hot chocolate. If I’m lucky, they will have Cascara Tea made from the dried outer husk or skin of the coffee cherry, the fruit that surrounds the coffee bean. Ah, but not here. Standing Room doesn’t only have a great coffee. They also have a very good hot chocolate AND very good pain au chocolate. Cue celebratory music that plays in my head when this happens.
Although it is called Standing Room, and there is plenty of standing room inside the stunning wood panelled cafe, we got a seat outside. The hot chocolate is made with 40% drinking chocolate from Ratio, a bean to bar chocolate maker based just outside the CBD that makes beautiful chocolate. It was perfectly made, the ratios were right, the milk, the blending, the art. They even have the hot chocolate in their normal menu, not in the “other drinks we need to sell but no one really orders” menu. Ah, put the volume up on the celebratory music. And don’t get me started on the pain au chocolat!
If only all coffee shops in Australia adopted a bean to bar chocolate maker for their hot chocolates. The world would be a better place (no joke).
