Chocolate: the real language of love
For those who prefer a sweet rather than floral Valentine token, good chocolates are always welcome.

Niall and Rosemary Daly’s The Chocolate Shop in Cork’s English Market stocks handsome red velvet heart-shaped boxes that can be filled with a personalised selection from their range of filled chocolates. Perhaps you’ll want coffee cream, or Cluizel dark hearts made with the French company’s Mangaro Noir chocolate from Madagasca. Pre-filled selections also available.

The Cluizel range is also stocked at Terroirs in Donnybrook, Dublin 4, where the Love Coffret No 15 (€17.50, above) is a reassuringly expensive looking box of dark and milk chocolates. Keeping it Irish, the Butlers Valentine’s heart tin (€14) has 19 milk, white and dark filled chocolate hearts (pictured below).

Also on the chocolate theme for Valentine’s Day, the cinema club at Brooks Hotel just off Grafton Street in Dublin 2 is screening the French film Chocolat at 7.30pm in its intimate 26-seat private cinema. You can kick back in the giant, seats with a soft drink and popcorn for €14 or upgrade your cinema ticket to include a cocktail for an extra €4. A pre-cinema two-course dinner in the hotel’s Francesca restaurant bring the price tag to €31 for dinner, movie and a cocktail. Tel: 01 6704000.

New chefs for Miele kitchen
Miele has signed some interesting new names to do cookery demos in its lavish show kitchen at Citywest Campus, Dublin 24. Chef Lucio Paduano offers gluten-free bread, pizza, pasta and desserts at Manifesto restaurant in Rathmines, Dublin 6 and he will be giving demos on Monday evenings, May 18th and 25th (plenty of notice, but this will book out rapidly).

Other additions are Nora Cleere, whose blog Journal of a French Foodie gives a nod to the subject she will be demonstrating; Nikki Walsh, who will cover everyday cooking skills, and Butler’s Pantry chef Niall Hill who will inspire the more adventurous cook. For the full programme see mielegallery.ie