KitKat Chocolatory Toronto
The KitKat Chocolatory has a permanent location in Toronto at Yorkdale Shopping Centre.
Following on the heels of a similar wildly successful pop-up concept, here you can "Create Your Break" by having a custom KitKat bar made, or book a "Chef's Table" experience where you make the chocolate yourself.
The space is compact but slick, with overhead lighting evocative of KitKat bars and a shiny red corner seat that's perfect for selfies.
The entire process of making custom KitKats is visible to customers inside the store, and a huge front window also lets passers by in on the action.
The "Create Your Break" experience ($15) starts with being greeted by a host who hands you a clipboard of info you can fill out to design your own personalized custom KitKat.
From there, join a queue where you can look at infographics along the way that tell you more about the chocolate and ingredients going into your bar.
Select from milk, dark or white chocolate, then select three from 16 ingredients like shredded coconut, peanut butter chips, mini marshmallows, sliced almonds, dried rose petals, rainbow sprinkles, rippled potato chips and more.
You can even imprint your KitKat bar with your own personalized message.
By the time you're done filling out the form, you've likely arrived at the front of the line where you can hand your form to a cashier and check out (note they're cashless).
All chocolate is actually tempered and piped into moulds by hand, so come back in about 90 minutes once you've placed your order.
Having 16 options for ingredients actually means there are over 2000 possible custom flavour combinations.
Special edition KitKats ($8) are also available to be plucked off the shelf, in "Canadian" varieties like "Totally, Butter Tart" made with milk chocolate, pecans, shortbread an toffee, and seasonal varieties like "Absolutely, Candy Cane" for Christmas made with dark chocolate, candy cane and gingerbread.
Other special editions include "Delightfully, Coffee & Donuts" with donut-flavoured milk chocolate, coffee and sprinkles, and "Seriously, Bluberry Streusel" with blueberry-flavoured white chocolate, streusel clusters and blueberries.
In-store exclusive "Celebration Edition" KitKats include Hooray Rose! with rose petals and Have Your Cake! with sprinkles.
Conveniently add a spunky greeting card for $2.
Bookable online for $45 per person and up to five people, the Chef's Table is a one-on-one experience with the head chocolatier.
Learn about the process and history of chocolate-making, design your own personalized KitKat with additional premium options, and then actually make your own bar yourself.
If you're not able to make it out to the store, you won't be able to create a custom KitKat, but you can purchase some of the special edition bars online.
Fareen Karim