She’s cooked for Princess Diana, Lord Sugar, Pierce Brosnan, Eva Schloss the Holocaust survivor and Anne Frank’s step-sister, ……..to name but a few! She was chef to the stars, government, and senior judiciary for twenty years in a private residence in The House of Lords. She also employed Benedict Cumberbatch as a waiter for a couple of years! And she’s living here in Clevedon and probably well known to many of you already as Lisa Clarke, aka The Chocolate Tart and the founder of Clevedon Cookery Club.
Do you remember Mr Ben? Well, Lisa likens herself to Ben! ‘Who am I today?’ Will she be Lisa Clarke the chef? Or Lisa Clarke the chocolatier creating bespoke handmade chocolates to send out all over the world? On the other hand, she could be Lisa Clarke the teacher who finds herself in a primary school surrounded by excited children or indeed a small group of adults who have just enjoyed a seasonal cookery demo and are now sitting savouring a leisurely lunch in her garden. Whatever she’s doing, she loves it, and it’s always fun and sociable. Life is busy, but it’s rewarding and good.
Lisa moved to Clevedon during the COVID-19 pandemic’s third lockdown, with the younger two of her three children, Phoebe and Freddie and wine merchant husband Ed. Their eldest Emily had just graduated and was living in Bristol. Prior to that, she had lived in Congresbury for twenty years. The family came to Clevedon exhausted after a period of constant pivoting and trying to think outside of the box.
At the time, Ed was selling wine to restaurants which had all shut and obviously Lisa’s workshops weren’t allowed to operate. They had a popular Airbnb above Lisa’s bespoke chocolate workshop in a converted barn behind their Congresbury home.
She was making chocolates seven days a week in her beautiful barn conversion workshop, selling them in a small honesty shop set up in a covered area at the gate. It was clear straight away that it was unsafe to have guests accessing the Airbnb and so they lost this income too. It was at this point that Lisa decided to start her online business.
Lisa made all the chocolates she was selling by hand, without any automated machinery. It was a lovely way to spend her days, learning on the job but like a rabbit in the headlights! Teaching herself through trial and error how to best and efficiently operate an online chocolate shop and the enormous amount of admin related to this type of business was one of the most challenging things she has ever done in her working life. But she was so proud of what she achieved.
To keep up with the established chocolatiers, Lisa rebranded her packaging with fancy bespoke ribbons and sleek black boxes and constantly researched about shelf life, emerging trends, and new ganache recipes. She made chocolates all day and trialled new recipes by night. It was exhausting! She never stopped! She was on her feet for sixteen hours a day or more. Ed and their younger daughter home from uni, helped with the admin, packaging and labelling, then queuing at the post office, whenever they could. Lisa barely left the confines of their home.
By lockdown two, Lisa came to the conclusion that it was not a financially viable business. She couldn’t match the income they were used to. She started to sell flour at cost at the gate alongside the chocolates. It was easy for her to source the flour from her chocolate suppliers at a time when it was in short supply in the shops. She re packaged it into smaller bags, since it was only available in 16kg sacks and tied on different coloured ribbons so that customers could differentiate between the different flour types. Payment was made via an honesty pot full of vinegar to kill any covid germs, or online when customers had enough reception to do so. It was Congresbury’s biggest secret!
Lisa asked the villagers not to post about it on social media as on several occasions, she witnessed people driving by, stopping, opening their boots and taking all the flour available. It was always paid for, but she wanted the flour to be a destination for the allowed daily walk. And it was disappointing if there was none left! She asked people to pay double if they could afford to, so that those who had lost their incomes could take flour for free.
Lisa used the excess of income from the flour to make chocolates for the NHS. Her chocolates went to hospitals and NHS staff all over the country. Some corporate companies and private individuals sponsored her to make chocolates for the NHS. It was one beautiful aspect of this terrible time!
Locally, they went to medical staff at Southmead Respiratory Department, the BRI A and E Department and Respiratory Ward staff at The Great Western Hospital, Swindon.
This wonderful photo shows Clevedon resident Dr Anthony Kerry distributing the chocolate to his team at The Great Western at the height of the pandemic. Such gestures from individuals like Lisa meant so much to NHS staff and were huge morale boosters.
Selling their family home to future proof their businesses against further lockdowns and even another pandemic was one of the hardest decisions Lisa and Ed have ever made but a very sensible one and not one they were alone in making – it was a course of action taken by a significant number of people at the time. But Lisa was quite philosophical about it. adding “….as I always say good always comes from bad!” The good in this case was finding their new home close to the seafront and full of original features. They arrived during lockdown three, having viewed the house without even realising that they could see the Pier and the Bristol Channel from the windows at the back and the beach from the front!
It was a time of great anxiety for the self-employed, who were amongst the hardest hit by the pandemic and having such easy access to the sea helped assuage Lisa’s anxiety and helped her make friends. Cold water swimming remains an essential activity in Lisa’s daily life; it is her escape from reality. It gives her an overwhelming sense of mental tranquillity. As the cold water envelops her, her head empties and she thinks of nothing more that concentrating on her breathing, getting around the pier leg, and back to the slipway. She finds it totally exhilarating and feels energised for hours afterwards.
Being in a dog-loving community also helped Lisa to make friends. The family came to Clevedon with their beloved spaniel Cocoa, who sadly had a fast-growing cancerous tumour and was not expected to last many weeks after the move. Miraculously, she lived on for nine months. Daily walks along the seafront with an excitable, sociable spaniel made for easy introductions to local people that Lisa is still friends with today.
Once restrictions were eased Lisa started to look for suitable venues for her workshops. Long time friend, Karen at Rise Bakehouse and Copse Road Chapel were instrumental in their kindness in offering suitable spaces to help get The Chocolate Tart up and running again. Lisa will be forever grateful to them both for their invaluable support. Ed and Lisa put on chocolate and wine matching evenings and made more local friends from those events!
Lisa is a valuable member of the Save Our Seafront campaign, representing the elderly seafront residents who felt that their voices were unheard. Within this group she has made solid friendships with the seafront business owners and life long Clevedonians who campaigned relentlessly to raise awareness of the danger of the unpopular scheme. In the early days of no restrictions, she helped out waitressing at Scarletts, where she loved serving at the icecream window! Recently she has been supporting the Tiffin Group when they need her to step in and chef at one of their local, prestigious venues.
Lisa has had the most exciting, illustrious career, and she traces her love of food and cooking back to her childhood in Scalby, a picturesque east coast village between Scarborough and Whitby in North Yorkshire. Her mother, Jenny, was a fabulous home cook. She cooked all the family meals from scratch using local butchers, fish bought straight off the pier, and local fruit and veg from the indoor market in Scarborough.
Lisa’s father, Martin, had a sweet tooth, and most Saturday mornings, the children would go with him to the local bakery to choose a cream cake. Lisa remembers the white tiled walls and ladies in white paper hats parcelling up their choices into boxes tied with beautiful ribbon and found it completely mesmerising! The packaging process for Lisa was as enjoyable as the eating! Her favourite cake was a Japonaise, a classic French pastry, also known as an almond meringue torte consisting of almond meringue discs sandwiched together with a rich coffee-flavoured butter cream. This was one of the first bakes that she taught herself at the very young age of ten. Some days, she would accompany her father to the Belgian chocolate shop in Scarborough to choose a couple of chocolates served in white, glassine paper bags.
Aside from her mother, Lisa was inspired by Raymond Blanc, the Roux Brothers, and Marco Pierre White in her early days of being a chef. She would pore over their cookery books and long to eat in their restaurants. When she finally went to Marco Pierre White’s restaurant, Harveys on Wandsworth Common, she sketched pictures and made notes of each course!
At fifteen, Lisa’s school Careers Advisor suggested that she was ideally suited to go to the local catering college. However, she was horrified at the idea of having to wear the chef’s checked trousers, so disregarded this advice! Had she gone, she would have been there at the same time as James Martin!
Lisa had never thought of cooking as a career, but it was her twin sister Sara’s experience at a Cordon Bleu Cookery School, tucked away in the Malvern Hills that inspired her to give it serious consideration. Sara would come home every few weeks with incredible new recipes and show off her mind-blowing culinary talents. Lisa was in awe of her sister’s achievements. Younger sister Becca Sulocki worked with Antonio Carluccio and Jamie Oliver and is now a renowned Stockholm based food stylist and digital marketing expert for the Swedish hospitality industry.
Lisa trained at Evendine Court, which was a finishing school, where she qualified with the highest grade ever in the history of the college. She left armed with a distinction in her Cordon Bleu Diploma, her City and Guilds Level 1 and 2 and the knowledge of how to walk with books on her head and how to get in and out of a sports car, without flashing her knickers!
Interestingly, Lisa was at college with Mary Berry’s daughter, Annabel. Mary did not attract much attention at this time, apart from mothers who were using AGAs to cook at home. Unlike now, with seventy-five cookery books to her name and her inclusion as Dame on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. There was rivalry between Annabel and Lisa rooted in Lisa being chosen for the coveted position of Head Girl!
Ski seasons in the Swiss Alps at Verbier and Val D’Isere in southeastern France, Scottish fishing and shooting lodges and annually cooking for Japanese players at the Toyota World Matchplay all offered much excitement and invaluable experience, but most of Lisa’s hands-on training came through her time with London party and event catering companies Party Ingredients and By Word of Mouth. It was a very exciting time; it was fast-paced, the work was varied, the order of the day was luxury, and the budgets were ridiculously high. Clients might be The Natural History Museum, a Royal Palace, an art gallery or a wealthy private home. Lisa described it as an eye-opening, jaw-dropping working life. There was little to no time for a social life.
In November 1995, Lisa started her own event catering company, Hedgehog Pie, catering for weddings, society events and private and corporate parties. She was a recommended caterer in The River Room, The House of Lords and at The Royal Courts of Justice. Lisa ran Hedgehog Pie for twenty years. Latterly, she also started her chocolate school, The Chocolate Tart, alongside Hedgehog Pie. With a young family and a husband working away from home at the time, it was a crazy life.
At the start of this post, I alluded to the fact that Lisa had catered for a significant number of famous people. The list is impressive, and apart from those I have already mentioned, she cited Boris Johnson, Margaret Thatcher, Dame Jenny Abramsky, Fergie, Prince Charles, Mary Quant, Terence Conran, Lord Irvine, Lord Falconer, Cherie Blair, and the mother of AA Gill the food critic and the most nerve-wracking of her clients.
As Lisa had always worked with chocolate alongside her catering business, Hedgehog Pie, the transition to full-time chocolatier was an easy one, one inspired by the success of her culinary adventure within the walls of The House of Lords in 2004, when she cooked a private dinner for the Senior Judiciary in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The pièce de resistance on this memorable occasion was a handmade chocolate cup filled with Eton Mess. I had to smile as Lisa told me the tale of how she changed out of her chef’s whites, dressed as a waitress and stood behind Her Majesty as she ate it! It was a moment she will never forget and a story she has dined out on more than once.
Lisa thrived in her full-time role as chocolatier, teaching all things chocolate to fellow professionals and anyone aged 11 – 111.
I imagined that working with chocolate would be great fun, and yes, Lisa loves exploring and developing new recipes and playing with new flavours and decorations. She particularly loves preparing desserts, and the scope for being creative is endless. Her greatest culinary achievement to date was creating chocolates at a pop-up Michelin-starred restaurant on a private island in the middle of the Red Sea! I was intrigued! But unfortunately, she had signed an NDA! (Non-Disclosure Agreement)
Lisa is also very attracted to the science of chocolate, which is, in reality, a very complex process that involves a number of chemical reactions. Understanding its properties and how it behaves in certain conditions is critical to success and is still an area of active research.
Lisa’s reputation precedes her, and when she went online with her chocolates during the pandemic, she achieved great success with five Taste of the West awards for her mouth-watering creations, notably her sexy and gorgeous raspberry and rose dark truffles, her caramelised salted caramel truffles; her roasted almond and gold slab bar; her peanut butter jelly and her sexy and gorgeous milk chocolate truffles.
Places at Lisa’s chocolate workshops lasting one and a half or two and half hours are snapped up as fast as they are advertised, as does her four-hour masterclass workshop. She also offers a one-to-one bespoke workshop.
Lisa’s reviews on Facebook are as outstanding as they are on Tripadvisor, where she enjoys a rating score of 5.0. The reviews below are typical.
“What a fabulous workshop!!! I loved the mixture of information with the relaxed atmosphere; my fellow chocolate makers were a delightful group. Lisa was full of hints, tips and encouragement…this was a Christmas gift from my partner, it couldn’t have been better…and the results were delicious”. Jaki L
“Wow, if you want a really rewarding and fun experience, this is the place to go. Top class and professional course, which was friendly and huge fun at the same time. Came away buzzing with new knowledge and a bag full of really professional chocolates that I had made.!! Not only does Lisa teach an amazing course, but you learn how to wrap and package as well. This is an experience not to be missed and has a session to cater for everyone, including men. Book your spot now; I reckon it is worth going again to learn a bit more”. Thank you, Lisa.
“Far, far, far exceeded my expectations. Lisa ran a workshop for me and 16 others in my hen party, we made tons in the time, and she ran a very slick operation with the perfect balance between keeping things ticking along while not making people feel rushed. And the chocolate is just divine. I also really enjoyed the sciencey bits in the demos/explanations.” carlyloub
The range of people who access the courses is very diverse: individuals, couples, family groups, hen parties, organisations looking for team-building activities with a difference, youth groups, children’s parties, the list is endless! Lisa also loves going in to primary and secondary schools. She teaches the younger children where chocolate comes from, how to make simple chocolates and how to package them in Aztec inspired boxes to take home. At secondary school level Lisa links the Food Technology and Chemistry departments to demonstrate that food is a science and an exciting business to be a part of.
Of particular note is Lisa’s involvement with the dementia community. Lisa had gifted chocolates to Carl Ellis, the quiz master at the Royal Oak, where she and Ed go every Monday evening.
Luckily, Carl had shared them with his wife Anne, who heads up The Alive Activities in Clevedon, Portishead and Nailsea. Alive is a charity dedicated to improving the quality of life of older people and their carers.
Anne had a benefactor who had generously given a sum of money to be used for an Easter activity. So she thought of Lisa. Lisa spent three afternoons with the assistance of Anne’s professional team teaching the art of the chocolatier to people who live with dementia and their loved ones who care for them.
This gentleman in the photo cares for his wife around the clock and absolutely loved the chocolate making session and seeing his wife enjoying her experience so much! Lisa got just as much fun from delivering it.
Lisa is such an accomplished chocolatier and chef with more than thirty years in the industry, and she remains excited by all things culinary. She loves all fresh ingredients and can get as excited about seeing a wonderful display of fresh seasonal vegetables at The Veg Box or the sight of beautifully laid out freshly baked pastries and bread at Rise Bakehouse, as she can about achieving that shiny, smooth texture during the chocolate tempering process.
To that end, she has recently added to what she offers with her very popular Clevedon Cookery Club, which takes place in her beautiful Victorian home near Clevedon seafront. This Summer, after welcome drinks and homemade bakes, she demonstrated a three-course summer menu, which participants enjoyed together in her courtyard garden. On the menu was: Smoked Salmon Blinis – fresh smoked salmon on a dill blini with dill mustard mayonnaise; followed by Chicken Nduja Milanese – corn-fed chicken breast with Nduja encased in panko breadcrumbs served with cucumber salad, mango salsa and roasted new potatoes; and to finish, Strawberry Tart – crème pâtissière encased in sweet pâte sucrée and topped with fresh local strawberries. If you’d like to read and see a lovely visual account of the day, check out food blogger Lizzie George Lizzie.Eats.Explores.
Lisa is offering a seasonal Autumnal cooking demo, which follows the same format and after Christmas will be offering a spring cookery demo class. You will be able to attend on your own on the advertised dates, or request a date and come as a group of six to eight.
Aside from a large number of her usual chocolate workshops. Lisa has already taught the organized amongst us how to get ahead with Christmas preparations, making your own bespoke Christmas cake and a Christmas goodies demonstration, which includes delights such as Christmas canapés, wild mushroom and saffron risotto, homemade marzipan, chocolate salami, and chutney and stuffings. Due to high demand this year, she is already taking bookings for this class in 2024! The second is a two-and-a-half-hour chocolate-making session, making three sets of Christmas chocolates and packaging them in an Advent calendar and mini crackers to take home with you as a gorgeous Christmas treat or as gifts for friends and family. One of these workshops is even happening on Clevedon Pier! The third is Christmas wreath making with coffee and cake and a two-course lunch with non-alcoholic drinks, followed by an afternoon of handmade chocolate Advent Calendar making, mini Christmas Crackers and stocking filler chocolates. Available places for this workshop are limited. It sounds so good. If you think you might be interested, you’ll find all of the dates and exact details on Lisa’s website
I’m sure we are going to see many more exciting ventures from Lisa. Did I mention that she’s collaborating with a private venue in Sandford that has been designed to look like an airport departure lounge or that she’s been doing pop-ups at Avery’s wine cellars in Bristol? Or………… she has so much in the pipeline!
The Chocolate Tart and The Clevedon Cookery Club are on Facebook and Instagram. Here’s Lisa’s email in case you’d like to contact her to discuss something bespoke. Or you could phone her 07802 774188.