Dark, sweet and delicious

Two little words that factor large in Melbourne's affections: ''cafe'' and ''chocolate''. Combine the two, and you have a fetish. Chocolate cafes are fanciful, luxurious, decadent.

''Melburnians are very discerning about their chocolate,'' says Tim Clark, chocolatier and co-owner of Melbourne's Cacao. ''I think it comes from the European immigrants who created a food culture here, and created a demand for chocolate cafes.

''We're doing more Asian flavours these days, too. Flavours like chilli, green tea, kaffir lime, tapioca, coconut and mango. But generally speaking we find Melburnians have a Swiss palate: they prefer milk chocolate and hazelnuts.''

While individual chocolates are the initial lure of chocolate cafes, most people buy chocolates to take away. ''Buying chocolates from a cafe makes it more than a transaction,'' says Shane Hills, owner of Koko Black. As such, chocolate cafes offer a reason to stay a while, with dessert-style menus, cakes and coffee.

Koko Black and Cacao are both Melbourne-owned, and both started in 2002. They were the forerunners, soon joined by a spate of others. From Spain we have San Churro, with a dozen outlets, while our eight highly stylised and a bit out-there Max Brenner cafes hail from Israel.

While each brand has a point of difference, the thing that all these chocolatiers have in common is that they specialise in chocolate drinks: hot chocolate, iced chocolate, chocktails, milkshakes and mochas. For about 1800 years of its 2000-year history chocolate was only ever consumed as a drink, and not a sweet one. It wasn't until the 1800s that the first solid chocolate was made (by adding cocoa butter to cocoa powder), and it wasn't until the 20th century that chocolate became the sweet, flavoured delicacy we understand today to be chocolate. Of course you can still get good coffee at a chocolate cafe, but their chocolate drinks are generally luscious, complex brews.

The other more remarkable commonality among chocolate cafes is that not one is actually making chocolate. They buy their chocolate as buttons, primarily from France and Belgium, then melt them down, mould it and add flavour. ''There are five or six main companies making high-quality chocolate … all over the world,'' Clark from Cacao says.

The exception is the Swiss multinational company Lindt, which makes its chocolate from scratch at six factories around Europe. As a company, it dates back to the genesis of solid chocolate, 1845, and today has a presence in more than 100 countries.

At Brunswick cafe Monsieur Truffe, head of chocolate production Jade Bentley is doing something unique in Melbourne: working to perfect the city's first bean-to-bar chocolate. That is, actually making chocolate here, from scratch.

House-roasted, single-origin, ethically sourced beans … sounding familiar? Like the third-wave boom that happened with coffee recently, there's a new wave of chocolate cafes about to hit. It's already started in other Australian states, with bean-to-bar chocolatiers in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, and has taken off in the US where craft chocolatiers proliferate. New York's five-year-old Mast Brothers are credited with starting the bean-to-bar boom in America.

''Bean-to-bar means we have complete control over the product,'' Bentley says. ''There are no milk powders, vegetable fats, preservatives or emulsifiers, just beans and sugar: less than a handful of ingredients. It's about bringing out the natural characteristics from the bean, not to hide or mask what's there.''

It's the old way they made chocolate, from centuries ago, that's new again. Bentley works on fantastical, romantic-looking vintage machinery: a roaster from the 1930s and a grinder from Paris that's a couple of hundred years old.

''That type of machinery today is built for industrial-scale production, not the boutique batches we need,'' she says.

Monsieur Truffe has been experimenting with bean-to-bar for about 18 months; Bentley since Christmas.

''We hope to be ready sometime this year,'' she says.

Whatever its form and in whatever century it's consumed, chocolate is precious. It was used as currency by the Aztecs and is today given as a gift to mark an occasion or eaten sparely to make an occasion of any day. Chocolate may be slow to evolve, but with the rise of chocolate cafes and the birth of bean-to-bar in the last decade, these are among the most exciting times in its history.

Cacao

Cacao has four outlets , its flagship is in the hallowed heartland of Melbourne's European cake culture, St Kilda, and it offers a small range of French-style cakes. It's in a modern, concrete box-like building, furnished with handsome candy-striped seating and a long counter that encases a range of little, highly worked chocolate treasures: a cut Ruby (blood-orange caramel and dark chocolate); a gold-topped Aztec (with chilli and ganache).

We tried Chocolate mousse cake, hot chocolate, iced chocolate, affogato and Cacao and Spark pralines.

Verdict Beautifully balanced chocolate: smooth and rich with a clean finish. See cacao.com.au.

Score 4.5/5

Koko Black

Koko Black has seven moody ''salons'' classically furnished with chesterfields and dark-lacquered cabinetry. It has a ''polite society'' sensibility, with locations including the top of Collins and Royal Arcade, table service, and elegant dessert spreads on a wooden board, including portions of mousse, brownie and ice-cream plus pralines and florentines - inelegantly scoffable.

We tried Belgian Spoil (walnut brownie, cassis and walnut pralines, chocolate mousse, chocolate ice-cream and florentines), and hot chocolate.

Verdict Velvety, balanced, long and smooth chocolate. See kokoblack.com.

Score 4.5/5

Theobroma

Also Melbourne-born is the international franchise Theobroma, with 11 Victorian outlets mostly located in shopping centres; waffles are their thing (other than choccies).

We tried Hot (milk) chocolate.

Verdict On the cloyingly sweet side, with a slight gritty mouthfeel; comes with its own personal candle-lit warmer (cute). See theobroma.com.au.

Score 2.5/5

Max Brenner

They have the Hug Mug (shaped a bit like a bedpan) ''for the chocolate-drinking ceremony'', and a globe-hopping menu (waffles, chocolate pizza, crepes) that includes a few oddball offerings: a shot of melted chocolate planted with exploding candy and white-chocolate buds and Gummy bears.

We tried Hot chocolate with crunchy waffle balls; a chocolate shot and pralines.

Verdict The chocolate has a sweet hit up front, while the ''chocolate shot'' is a busy jumble of competing sweets - one for intrepid sweet-tooths. See maxbrenner.com.au.

Score 3.5/5

Lindt

As a concept cafe it's a relative newcomer, opening its flagship Collins Street cafe in late 2009, adding three more outlets in subsequent years. Lindt cafes represent quality; they're swish and have a hotel-lobby order and efficiency about them; they sell the range of Lindt balls and bars, as well as cakes (made in Sydney) and signature chocolate drinks.

We tried Iced chocolate and chocolate eclair.

Verdict Lindt's chocolate is creamy, smooth and mild; the eclair was on the dry side. See lindt.com.au.

Score 4/5

Monsieur Truffe

A chocolatier works behind glass on the floor of the cafe (which currently specialises in single-origin chocolate bars).

We tried Iced mocha.

Verdict Great value, deep flavours: shot of Market Lane espresso, plus house-blend chocolate, milk, ice-cream and a waxed straw. See monsieurtruffe.wordpress.com.

Score 4.5/5

Also

■ Cacao Prieto, see cacaoprieto.com

■ Mast Brothers, see mastbrothers.com

■ San Churro, see sanchurro.com