This month in the Flowers.ie Community

Grá Chocolates

Artisan chocolates made in small batches and hand-painted by eye, where the making takes four days and every piece leaves looking like nothing else.

01 / Introduction

Irish businesses worth knowing, built with real care close to home.

We created the Flowers.ie Community to introduce our customers to the Irish makers, cafés and brands we admire. Each one is a business built on care rather than scale, where someone has decided to do a thing properly even when it would be easier not to.

Grá Chocolates is one of those. Every chocolate is made in small batches by hand and painted individually, which means the work takes days rather than minutes and no two pieces are quite alike.

02 / The story

From Michelin kitchens to a shed in Kilchreest

Gráinne Mullins started in the pastry section of five-star hotels as a teenager. She left a science degree to train at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Aix-en-Provence, then refined her pastry work in Michelin-starred kitchens back in Ireland. In 2019 she was named Euro-Toques Young Chef of the Year.

Then, in 2020, she found herself making handmade Easter eggs for friends and family in her family's shed in Kilchreest, County Galway. That is where Grá Chocolates began.

From Michelin kitchens to a shed in Kilchreest

03 / The craft

Four days, polished moulds, and a brush in hand

Each batch takes four days. The moulds are polished to a high shine before anything goes near them, which is what gives the finished chocolates their gloss, and every piece is then hand-painted. It is slower than any sensible production schedule would allow, and it is the reason the box looks the way it does when you open it.

The chocolate itself is Valrhona, ethically sourced and from a B Corp. The cocoa butter is undeodourised, so it keeps its own character rather than being stripped neutral. The cream and butter come from local Irish dairies, and the fillings draw on Irish producers including Achill Island Sea Salt and Leahy's Honey, with seasonal ingredients used where they can be.

Four days, polished moulds, and a brush in hand

Flowers.ie Community giveaway

Win the Grá Chocolates Autumnal Collection with Flowers

We have partnered with Grá Chocolates to give away their Autumnal Collection alongside a Flowers.ie floral arrangement.

Flower Arrangementfrom Flowers.ie
The Autumn Collectionfrom Grá Chocolates

Enter the giveaway

Entry dates, eligibility and full terms apply.

04 / Discover more

The story continues at Grá Chocolates.

Explore the full range, the seasonal collections and the story behind the making.

grachocolates.com