The place chocoholics can indulge in a Wonka, all-you-can-eat experience

Charlie Bucket lucked out when he happened upon his Golden Ticket. For real-life chocoholics, though, all it takes is a little planning, a large appetite and a ticket to Zurich to indulge in your own Wonka-like, all-you-can-eat experience.

Lindt Home of Chocolate opened in suburban Zurich in 2020 next to the company’s factory – and is now among the city’s most popular attractions. Though you might wonder why, when you first stroll through the doors. Yes, there’s an impressive whisk-shaped chocolate fountain, measuring more than nine metres tall, flowing in the foyer (an ingenious – some might say cruel – design prevents onlookers from poking a finger into it). The foyer’s eye-squinting, all-white interior gives the museum a clinical, laboratory-like feel.

An impressive whisk-shaped chocolate fountain, measuring more than nine metres tall, greets visitors in the foyer.

No matter. If you’ve travelled here, you’ve already committed to diving into the museum’s innards. After heading upstairs with a brilliantly easy audio guide (you simply touch the guide to a whisk symbol to learn more about what you’re looking at), the first part of the display – which channels a cacao tree’s home in a lush rainforest – feels surreal, considering how far Switzerland is from the tropics. Things turn more interesting as another area (complete with cowbell and mooing sound effects) explains how this small central European country became synonymous with fine chocolate.

It boils down to multiple factors: quality milk from those happy cows grazing on the mountainsides, the invention of condensed milk that allowed milk to be transported over long distances - and a breakthrough from Rodolphe Lindt. The Bern inventor developed conching – a process that mixes and stirs the brittle chocolate mass until it reaches a velvety-smooth consistency. Other Swiss pioneers – Tobler, Nestle, Peter, Cailler and Suchard – also contributed to the country’s chocolate revolution.

Fill your face with as much of this oozy deliciousness as you can handle.

After browsing displays devoted to the evolution of chocolate moulds and packaging, there’s little warning about what’s to come. Suddenly, I’m in a room containing huge dispensers of three types of gooey melted chocolate (white, milk, dark). It’s like being immersed in a fever dream. Using the disposable spoons, you can fill your face with as much of this oozy deliciousness as you can handle.

Nearby is another surprise: dispensers of hard chocolate shards where you’re encouraged to taste and then guess the flavour. Can things get any better? Just before the exit is a colourful (supervised) counter filled with different Lindt balls where you can take one of each flavour. A dad with three kids in tow clearly didn’t expect this bounty – he pulls up his T-shirt to create a kangaroo pouch to hold his family’s chocolate goodies.

There’s more to see before departure, such as a peek at the company’s production lines, but it is hard to beat all those free chocolate samples. Although I’d planned to savour a hot chocolate at the ground-floor cafe before heading back to downtown Zurich, I realise I’ve reached my chocolate limit. You can, it turns out, have too much of a good thing.

Lindt Home of Chocolate opened in suburban Zurich in 2020, next to the company’s factory.

Back in Australia, I meet Melbourne-based, Swiss-raised Lindt Master Chocolatier Thomas Schnetzler (his face is familiar from Lindt’s TV commercials). His first impression of Lindt’s museum and its pristine interior, he recalls, is that “it’s like a cathedral of chocolate”.

“It’s definitely one of those museums where your sweet tooth will be satisfied by the end of it,” he says. “You see multiple generations come through – you’ve got the kids and the parents and then sometimes the grandparents as well. They’ve all got that cheeky little glow in their eye.

“That’s one of the beautiful things about chocolate. It’s very emotional and links back to memories and that’s why we enjoy certain types of chocolate. For example, I still enjoy milk chocolate with nuts because that takes me straight back to childhood and the chocolate I had then.”

The details

Lindt Home of Chocolate is open daily from 10am-7pm. Entry costs CHF17 ($30) for adults and CHF10 for children eight to 15 (younger than that is free). The museum can be reached by bus, boat or train; from Kilchberg train station, it’s a 10-minute stroll. It’s also popular, so book ahead online. See lindt-home-of-chocolate.com

The writer was a guest of Lindt Home of Chocolate.