Plan your road trip now.

Award-winning chocolatier, Norma Kelly, has expanded her Praline café in her hometown of Mitchelstown, opening a striking new 20-seater confectionery concept.

Praline Pastry & Chocolate Café is a mecca for dessert lovers on Lower Cork Street.

The focal point of the sleek new space is an eye-catching chocolate counter where customers can choose their own selection of Kelly’s hand-crafted creations to savour alongside a speciality coffee or decadent hot chocolate.

Photos: Kirsty Lyons

Meticulously made and individually hand-painted, Norma’s chocolates showcase her favourite ingredients from some of Munster’s top artisan producers.

For instance, the café’s signature Praline & Coffee chocolates comprise a ganache made with 35% single-origin milk chocolate from Papua New Guinea infused with coffee from Mean Bean’s roastery in neighbouring Co. Waterford and topped with a crunchy hazelnut praline layer.

*bliss*

Other flavours include Ivy Heather Honey from Galtee Honey Farm in Burncourt, Co. Tipperary, complemented by a homemade orange gel, and a Vanilla Salted Caramel seasoned with O’Neill’s Irish Atlantic Sea Salt from the beautiful Beara Peninsula in West Cork.

‘Pastry and chocolate have always been my first love’

“Pastry and chocolate have always been my first love, and it was always my dream to make them the headliners in my own café business,” Norma told us.

The newest addition to their offering is a collaboration with Mitchelstown-based craft brewer, Eight Degrees Brewing, featuring their Knockmealdown Irish Stout – a beer whose dark malt characteristics and distinctive espresso aroma pair perfectly with rich chocolate.

Visitors will also have their heads turned by desserts such as tiramisu, hazelnut and chocolate mousse, raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake and their Blas na hEireann award-winning praline opera pastry.

Praline Pastry & Chocolate Café is open Monday to Friday, 8am – 4.30pm, and on Saturdays from 9am – 4.30pm. The café is closed on Sundays.