We’ve all grown used to the world of semi-designer chocolates proposed by Hotel Chocolat - the place in which you buy your beautifully packaged, yummy confections in an environment that makes you feel good about parting with a fair amount of money.

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The stores major in the notion of dark chocolate equating to dark fixturing with a smattering of luscious graphics dotted around the perimeter and the kind of visual merchandising that says ‘eat me’.

It’s a format that has been around for some time and has now been given something of a makeover in the store just around the corner from Victoria station in London.

Here, much of the dark mid-shop equipment is tempered by injecting light-coloured wood and the occasional white shelf. The cash desk is also lighter in colour and the use of dark-cream terrazzo tiling provides an altogether newer aspect to this store.

All in all, this is very similar to what has been done in other branches of Hotel Chocolat, but the more time you spend looking at it, the more you realise that this is actually a lot different from other branches. What chief executive Angus Thirlwell and his team have succeeded in doing is taking a format that has proved its utility over a considerable period and then redesigned it to bring it up to date without tampering with the store’s environmental brand values. This is not an easy thing to do, and avoiding throwing out the baby with the bathwater is something that should always be top of mind when updating a store, but frequently is not.