Suzi: Do you have a first chocolate memory?

Craig: Yes, Haigh’s Chocolates’ coconut rough. Grandma always bought Haigh’s for Christmas and I just love the way the toasted coconut and chocolate combine – it just gets me going. I love it.

Suzi: What are your three favourite flavour combinations with chocolate?

Craig: Orange, spices and vanilla bean. My wife Sophie is a choc mint girl. I developed the French mint drinking chocolate for her and we sourced really good quality mint oil from France. It carries beautifully in the chocolate, but it’s not my flavour. I think I scoffed too many after dinner mints off the table one night when Mum and Dad had left the room.

Suzi: What is your all-time favourite chocolate biscuit flavour?

Craig: For me, there has to be two. I love the history of old food and you can’t beat the old Brockhoff Biscuits before Arnott’s took them over. I loved their chocolate royals. I loved to bite into them and the aesthetics of it. And the way you could bite or peel the chocolate all the way around the edges. My very favourite would have to be Kingstons, with the lush, rich ganache cream in contrast to the Anzac-like consistency of the outer.

Suzi: I’m glad you’re not another Tim Tam freak...

Craig: Mum didn’t let us have chocolate biscuits. My mate next door was such a great guy, and he would pour me two glasses of cordial and give me two chocolate biscuits and say “Don’t worry what your Mum says, just have them anyway”.

Suzi: That’s so cool. We used to get red cordial from our neighbours and sneak it into the cubby house. So tell me, which Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is your favourite – the original or the Tim Burton version?

Craig: Definitely the original. The new one was just too freaky. There was something so special about the light and the history behind the original, the music, the songs and the way you feel about Charlie. 

Suzi: Do you think Augustus Gloop would have survived a river of Grounded Pleasures hot chocolate?

Craig: I don’t think so. There’s no oompa loompas at my chocolatorium to help him out – although I would really love to employ some.

Suzi: Okay now, your favourite chocolate? 

Craig: I really love good dark chocolate with complexity of flavour. My favourite origin would be Ecuador, with its slightly fruity aftertaste. In Ghana, the cocoa has a great depth of flavour, with more things going on in your mouth. But my all-time favourite chocolate bar was the Polly Waffle and I just can’t get over the way that Hoadley’s killed it off. It was an amazing bar – marshmallow inside with a crispy Belgium-style wafer smothered in milk chocolate. When you’d bite into it, it was just so amazing .

Suzi: Didn’t they replace it with something Polly Waffle-esque?

Craig: No, they just made multi-flavoured Kit Kats. So disappointing really.

Suzi: How many different styles of drinking chocolate are you doing now?

Craig: Five – African red, the French mint, the cinnamon, the vanilla bean and then our very bespoke seven spice Sri Lankan chai.

Suzi: The chai is on my ultimate ingredient list. I can’t wait to use it in a dessert or two. 

Craig: I really wanted to make a quality chai with amazing spices and no milk powder, fake sugar or preservatives.

Suzi: Your favourite chocolate ice-cream? 

Craig: I love chocolate ice-cream with pieces of caramel mixed in. They have to be chewy and maybe the ice cream should also be a little bit salty. I’d love to develop a salty chocolate and caramel ice cream with Murray River sea salt.

Suzi: Favourite chocolate cake?

Craig: Yes, I love the series Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory. He made this great chocolate cloud cake, which was layers of chocolate cake filled with whipped cream. It’s just too good to explain – you have to Google it and make it now.

Suzi: What’s up your sleeve for 2013? 

Craig: Something really unique with white chocolate. I think white chocolate gets a hard time and I’m looking forward to showing people just how amazing it can be.