Decadence Chocolates — Local services in Winnipeg

July 28, 2020 Decadence A Review by Hassan Hawash

Decadence

Decadence is it moral or cultural decay? No way? Is it a sweet indulgence? Yes! Reminds me of when my mother would say let’s indulge in something sweet as we would settle in for an evening to watch a movie on television. Out would come the box of chocolates. Out would come some ice cream. Decadence. So, yes, although a sweet indulgence when you bite into the chocolate there is a rich quality something akin to what you may taste biting into dark chocolate. Two of the chocolates that I can vouch for is the banoffee and passion fruit. Two lusc – pleasingly rich, sweet taste - choices for sure.

It’s at 70 Sherbrook Street, open from 10 am to 6 pm everyday, just past Stella’s on the right side of the road just off Broadway. Oh, there is the sign, DECADENCE. Not far now.

Hello, are you the owner? Yes, I am. Hmmm, oh you must be from England. I first caught myself looking at Helen’s hat and then noticing her obvious English accent. ‘I got off the train here in Winnipeg on the way to Vancouver where I intended to settle, but here I am now. Going on 20 years since that day’, she reminisced.

You know, I reported, your chocolate shop comes very highly recommended. Two bakeries referred me to you. Now, never mind a live tweet, this is a personal endorsement from Helen’s peers. What could be better than word of mouth advertising? ‘Yeah, which ones,’ she asked? Two pretty big hitters from what I gather. This presence in the community is not terribly surprising, as Decadance has reached out to the community by way of making the Decadence brand name known by way of offering up chocolate making as an activity for a birthday party. Minimum 10 to have a class. Various celebrations have made good use of her custom designed chocolates as part of a wedding say as a thank you gift. You may be hosting a buffet. A chocolate selection would be a great addition for after the meal to go along with your tea or coffee. What’s more, perhaps as a team building event Decadance could host events ranging from tasting to making these fine on site-produced chocolates. You could sign up to learn firsthand how chocolate is grown and what is involved in the chocolate making process for a class of up to a maximum of 12 participants.

So, now let me tell you what I need. Hmmm, well I am buying a present for an Arab, a devout Muslim. In a twinkle of an eye, Helen knew instinctively not to include chocolate with either alcohol or gelatin. She knows the clientele. The chocolate was very well received. There is such a wide variety of an assortment of chocolate arrangements, on hand in the shop, and again if you have any ideas for custom-made chocolates Helen has got game.

The shop does appeal to a clientele who can indulge in not only chocolate, but also there is a fair selection of ice cream. Ice-cream made right on site. I can vouch for the passion fruit with salted caramel swirl. There is a corner that appeals to coffee lovers and with a nod to home brew – coffee roasted here in Manitoba. In that same vein, Decadence chocolate is produced right there on site. A selection of boxes are available for purchase that make for a great presentation as far as a gift goes.

From what I can gather, Decadence is much more than a chocolate shop. It can appeal to many people’s needs. I have no doubt it can...

As someone visiting from BC, Decadence Chocolates was a destination spot for me — I’ve followed them online for nearly a year and made it my first stop upon landing in Winnipeg. The service was truly excellent: warm, friendly, and welcoming, and they were even kind enough to gift me a truffle to try.

That said, I was unfortunately underwhelmed by the products themselves. The blueberry white chocolate ice cream bar had a great chocolate shell, but the ice cream lacked flavor — I couldn’t taste any blueberry. Similarly, the honey thyme truffle had no detectable thyme notes. I was most excited to try their creative kataifi bars, and while I absolutely respect the price point (at $14 each, kataifi is a costly ingredient), the bars didn’t deliver on flavor: the Mediterranean bar lacked any hint of orange, and the North American bar had raspberry but no noticeable Biscoff or cookie butter. The kataifi itself also tasted stale.

I found the pricing of the dessert bars ($17–18+) harder to justify, especially when using cheaper ingredients like marshmallow and canola oil.

I really wanted to love everything — the staff were wonderful and the concept is so unique — but the flavors didn’t live up to the descriptions, and consistency wasn’t there. As someone who regularly buys high-end chocolate, I truly hope the product development catches up to the creativity, because the potential is definitely there.

EDIT: An hour after posting this review, I got food poisoning from the North American bar. I could taste it as it came back up and in the photo I took, it was pretty easily detectable as that bar. I promptly reached out to Decadence Chocolates and got a concerned reply 2 days after. At their request I sent them photos of both bars at 2:52 PM. At 8:29 AM I received an email stating they the team tried the bar and did not receive any illness. If that's true, I'm glad to hear that no one else got struck by it - as I do have proof of what happened to me being directly related to the bar - but either way, I received an e-transfer refund for the single bar "as a gesture of goodwill", which I appreciate.

I think the chocolate shop is worth a visit, and I appreciate that they take these...

Had the Dubai chocolate strawberry cup earlier this summer and it was incredible. Went again this weekend as my daughter had been begging to go. This time though, the strawberries were mushy, the cup had excess liquid (it seemed like maybe the strawberries were frozen and maybe melting), and the chocolate hardened right away. There was also just a small amount of the pistachio/kadayif on top whereas last time it was distributed throughout the cup. It was honestly barely edible, so we went back. I asked if maybe the strawberries were frozen (they insisted they weren't) or could there be another reason for the cup to taste so awful especially compared to the delicious one we had prior. They said it just depended on what strawberries they get at the store and that was it, which is fair. But the same can be said for restaurants, etc. Unfortunately they were not apologetic at all and while they offered a refund they seemed unhappy and reluctant about it. The worst part was when another employee came up to ask the one who was helping me what the problem was and when she said "they didn't like the strawberries" he scoffed and made a face. I called him out on it but it was unnecessarily rude, I was quite polite about my request- I came up to ask about the strawberries and was genuinely curious as to why the taste could be so different than the last time we were there. I wasn't demanding or even expecting a refund (in the end I didn't even take it, I swapped for a chocolate bar instead), I was polite, and I'm a repeat customer. But the rudeness from the employees certainly ensures that I won't be back. Very very disappointing experience all together. Instead of being curious or wanting to resolve the problem they seemed to blame me for "not liking the strawberries". They didn't care that the quality of the product had gone downhill, they didn't care about the customer experience - they were just rude and dismissive. I love supporting local businesses but I'll have to give this place a pass...