Question: What is more indulgent than a trip to Paris?

Answer: A trip to Paris Chocolate Festival.

Between October 20th and October 14th Paris Chocolate Festival, known locally as Salon du Chocolat will be coming of age, hitting the bit one-eight. And how will the festival be celebrating its 18th birthday? With lashings of cocoa, sweet, sweet sugar, and of course birthday cake! The theme of this year’s festival is ‘chocolate pastries’ so expect mountains of cakes, éclairs, tarts, pies, biscuits and how could we forget the classic pain au chocolat? As with every year there will be just about every flavour of macaroon on the earth too alongside a mind boggling array of chocolate products.

Expect some very classy pastries

This isn’t just a chocolate store though, this is a festival and as such, the Paris Chocolate Festival will have loads of chocolate-centric events. The highlight of the timetable is always the nightly Chocolate Fashion Shows held at 5PM. In previous years models have strutted their stuff in bustiers and even entire dresses made of chocolate. Come along, drool a little and see how fast they walk their loop of the runway under the burning hot stage lights. Another show worth checking out is the Chocolate Awards which take place towards the start of the festival on Friday October 21st at 4PM. Awards will be given out in categories you didn’t even know existed and there should be a chocolate sculpture competition to crown it all off.

Chocolate hat anyone?

The Salon du Chocolat will welcome a whopping 400 chocolate and pastry chefs this year from up-an-comings to already-upped-and-cames. They will be manning 160 stands in the 12,000 metre Paris Expo at Porte de Versailles in the 15th arrondissement. They will also be involved in some more interactive displays. The Chocosphere will be an education centre where audiences are taught about chocolate production, nutrition and cocoa bean growth among other things. Meanwhile the Cocoa Show is a curious event where there will be singing and dancing. Although how this relates to chocolate I’m not sure. I’m hoping for dancing chocolate or at least dancing in chocolate.

Less exciting and more than a little blasphemous is the “sugar free” section – a bit of a contradiction in terms if you ask me. I mean, sure diabetics should be allowed to join in the fun but sometimes being politically correct goes a little too far. And the result is sugar free chocolate. Given their natural aversion to chocolate, sugar or anything that implies a risk of tooth-rot, this is hardly a place for the little ones either. But if you really must bring the kids, deposit them at ChocoLand where they will learn to create their own chocolate concoctions and have wipeable surfaces upon which to rest their sticky little hands.

In Paris there's always macaroons

Also interesting will be the chocolate bookshop which, thankfully, won’t be translated as literally as the fashion show. Books sold here will be about chocolate rather than made of it (imagine turning those pages) and many of their famous authors will be on hand for signings. Bring the sweetness home with you by picking up a book or popping along to one of the scheduled demonstrations and learning how to craft your own slice/truffle/slab/puff of heaven. Scheduled speakers include cupcake queen Chloé Saada and Hugues Pouget of divine patisserie Victor&Hugo fame. Granted they’ll be in French but pick up a recipe card and keep a close eye out and even those without a word of French are unlikely to miss much.

The event has been such a huge hit in the last 18 years that copycat events have sprung up in places as far-flung as Tokyo and New York. For the Paris event you may be able to pick up tickets at the door but if you are really keen or you ‘d like to cut out the hassle, you can buy tickets online here.