Do you ever see something and say to yourself: that’s so effing Berlin? Well, this Icelandic chocolate brand is more Berlin than a septum-pierced, black-jeaned, Fjällräven-bagged girl stubbing a rollie into an empty Club Mate bottle whilst complaining in English about all the tourists we have now. And do you know what? You can’t even buy it here. Nope. Sorry, you can’t. Proving the Icelandic can do everything: OmNom Chocolate.

I know that by this point at least half of you have already stopped reading to call your tattooist up on speed-dial, desperately trying to organise an ASAP appointment to get one of OmNom’s amazing geometric designs inked across your neck. And I applaud you. You’ll be guaranteed access to at least 90% of Berlin’s clubs forevermore.

But jokes aside, I never understood that ‘unboxing’ trend… sad little virgins unpacking their latest piece of tat with relish to the delight of their spank-rag YouTube brethren. Foreplay for the consumerist generation. But man, a bar of OmNom truly is something to behold.

You feel special having it in your possession. It’s the grail that you chose wisely. And each bit of packaging you remove reveals something equally delightful in design underneath.

The packaging was created by Andre Visage, a man who should clearly get hired to redesign Berlin’s U- and S-bahn seat covers.

But OmNom isn’t only about the branding. It’s not some get-the-logo-right-and-no-one-will-notice-we’re-shite Neukölln food truck. The chocolate is at least as good as the packaging if not better.

For the chocolate connoisseurs, they offer flavours such as Tanzania 70%, Dark Milk of Tanzania 65%, Madagascar 66%, Milk of Madagascar 45%, Papua New Guinea 70%, all of which allow you to savour the subtle differences in character between the chocolate beans from different countries. The Madagascar, for example, has an almost spiced fruitiness to it whereas Tanzania is more about that bitter-rich darkness. Then there are the fun flavours like Sea Salted Almonds + Milk 45%, Lakkrís + Sea Salt and Coffee + Milk.

One thing you realise is that OmNom don’t do flavours by half. Their coffee chocolate is tantamount to drinking a double espresso. Their sea salt and licorice root one actually has a slight numbing effect in your mouth. Yet somehow they manage to keep all flavours perfectly balanced.

Their sea salt and almond one was the first one I tried, and the reason I started looking further into OmNom Chocolate. It was an instant favourite. But then, their licorice one didn’t work for me initially. I had to eat it over a few days to realise that wow, this one might be my favourite of all.

But why am I writing this ode to OmNom? Because I don’t know why this plucky little Icelandic brand isn’t sold in every Späti in Berlin. It seems a natural Berlin product to me. As ubiquitous as Fred cigarettes and overpriced coconut water.

But the fact is, you can buy OmNom in 290 locations around the world. Canada has seven locations where you can buy their chocolate, and Singapore and Slovakia have one each. Antwerp in Belgium has two locations and Berlin, capital city of Europe’s biggest economy, has zero. In fact, the only place you can buy OmNom Chocolate in Germany is in a city called Wiesbaden, located west of Frankfurt. What did Wiesbaden do to deserve this (aside from being one of Europe’s oldest Spa Towns)? …Germantown in Nashville, Tennessee has as many stores as Deutschland.

So until OmNom come to their senses and open a store on every Berlin street corner, I’ll be reliant on people visiting Reykjavík (which is everyone) to bring me some back. Although luckily OmNom does have an online store where you can order from and they do deliver to Germany. Unfortunately, their bars sell out faster than OmNom can make them so you have to be lucky to get the flavours you want online.

And if OmNom want to send any free chocolate my way, ac@staging-berlinlovesyou.kinsta.cloud.

***Breaking News*** We’ve just been notified that Fräulein Schneefeld & Herr Hund stocks OmNom Chocolate. Go forth and purchase, BLYers!

OmNom Chocolate
www.omnomchocolate.com

Available from:

“Fräulein Schneefeld & Herr Hund”
Chocolaterie & Buchhandlung
Prenzlauer Allee 23
10405 Berlin

And in case you were in Wiesbaden…

Xocoatl – feine schokoladen
Grabenstraße 24
65183 Wiesbaden