Andronicus Chocolates

The Andronicus Chocolate Shop (at right), Lower George St, c late 1960's

Charles Andronicus (Uncle Charlie to me) and Nick, ran Sydney's premier chocolate shop in Sydney for many years. Uncle Charlie managed the finances and stock and ran the staff of four or five skilled chocolate dippers (middle aged women and, in school holidays, me). It was his business. This was circa 1964 - 65.

At the back of the shop was a large, spotless kitchen with an imposing vat in one corner. In the centre was a large iron table which had removable and resizable edges. This was Nick's domain. He ran it expertly and never faltered. In his large vat he made the chocolate fillings, nougat, toffee, honey crumble, and the newest creation "rocky road" consisting of chocolate, marshmallow and cherries. Some time later, Darrell Lea produced a (downmarket) version which they called, "Rock-Lea Road". I remember Uncle Charlie jokingly referring to rocky road as "rock and roll".

The chocolate fillings are what distinguished Andronicus Chocolates from all the rest. Nick had developed a special formula to make hand dipped chocolates with a runny filling. Something no other chocolate maker has achieved to this day. He never wrote the formula down, he kept it in his head. The legendary Andronicus chocolates gained cult status because of their very high quality, and the runny filling which no other chocolate maker could emulate. There was only one outlet, the shop at lower George St. Soon overseas travellers in the know, arriving by boat, would beat a track to this shop and stock up on the one luxury they could get nowhere else. The shop was always stocked up, and never let customers down. Freshness was always guaranteed.

I often got to watch Nick at work in the kitchen. Everything was made in the vat with utmost precision. It was all about quantities, temperature, time, and was different for every product. With the fillings, he would choose one small jar of essence, and put a minute amount into the vat. As if by magic the whole kitchen would take on the sweet odour of orange or peppermint, or any of the other fillings, including honeycomb and nougat.

After the allotted time, he would empty the steaming vat onto the table, and while the contents were still warm, he would cut them into small cubes and then they were wheeled into the dipping room. This was a hive of activity. Four middle-aged women, friendly banter, (they all fell in love with me) sitting on low stools, around a heated bowl of chocolate. They would take one of the cubes, dip it into the chocolate, place it onto the conveyance belt, and then put a coded squiggle on it according to its content. Thanks to Nick's wizardry, this would now have a smooth runny centre, and baffle Australia's chocolate industry.

My main work at the factory was weighing and packaging into cellophane bags. I packaged chocolate mints, orange peel dipped in chocolate, chocolate almonds, chocolate ginger, and rocky road. I appointed myself quality control officer. I found that the chocolate mints needed a lot of control, but the chocolate almonds came a close second. My room was next to the dipping room and opposite the long shop counter, which Uncle Charlie watched. If it got busy he would press a buzzer, and one of the women would appear, in a clean starched white coat. I could leave my door open and watch the action in the shop. When I finished packaging (I was really a fast worker), my Uncle would invite me into the shop, to sit with him at the end of the counter. Pretty soon he would let me serve customers, using the big manual till. It started getting busy after 4pm and by that time Nick was with us, but I got first go at the customers. Serving them and making suggestions was so cool. The extra sales pleased Uncle Charles, and when I offered to sweep the shop out, that was like icing on the cake.

I did manage to displease him once, however. It was when I spent my first pay packet at the nearby Harmony Record store on a Ray Charles LP.

When Uncle Charlie saw what I had spent my wages on he quoted his often said proverb (with a twinkle in his eye) , "a fool and his money are soon parted".

Now Uncle Charlie has passed on and the shop and the whole block on which it stood have been turned into ticky tacky (aka the Regent Hotel) and Nick's secrets remain forever secret but how many love affairs were initiated by a box of Andronicus Chocolates from that nondescript shop at the wrong end of George St?