Gourmet Chocolate in Buona Vista: Lemuel's Bean-to-Bar Cafe

Lemuel Chocolate sorts, roasts, cracks, winnows and grinds its own cacao at a factory café in The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green, #01-04/05, Singapore 138617, and its Kopitiam Collection bars cost S$17.40 each. The café opens 10am to 9pm every day, takes walk-ins only and has no phone line. If gourmet chocolate near me brings you to Buona Vista, this is where to see Singapore bean-to-bar made a few metres from your table.

Co-founder Ronald Ng writes that he and his long-time friend Hideki Sakanishi started Lemuel after visiting Dandelion Chocolate and Green Bean to Bar in Tokyo in 2017. The craft chocolate scene in Japan convinced them Singapore needed its own maker. It took less than two months to go from that trip to a working business, and the first workshop was incorporated in August 2017.

The stated mission is to make craft chocolate appreciation as familiar in Singapore as wine or coffee appreciation. In practice that means beans bought from farmers and cacao agents, then processed by hand through every step until the chocolate is tempered and moulded into bars. The company also says it enters the World Chocolate Awards so that customers have outside credentials to judge it by.

Lemuel calls the Star Vista site a factory-concept café, and the appeal is watching chocolate being made while you eat. Last orders for the café are at 8.40pm, twenty minutes before closing. Because there is no phone number, questions go to hello@lemuelchocolate.com or to the shop's Instagram messages, and workshops are booked through an enquiry form on the website rather than a fixed price list.

For Singapore's 61st birthday this year, Lemuel released bars flavoured after kopitiam orders, including Kopi Gao Siu Dai, Teh C and Zichar Cereal, each priced at S$17.40. The SG61 Local Delights Bundle costs S$61 and packs twelve bonbons across six local flavours with one full-size Kopitiam bar. It is the most Singaporean souvenir in the shop and travels better than a box of kueh.

The bonbon flavours read like a hawker menu. Pulut Hitam combines black glutinous rice and coconut milk, Sesame Tangyuan chases the black sesame filling of the glutinous rice ball, and Milo Dino works in the malty crunch of the drink stall favourite. Peanut Muachee and Ondeh Ondeh, with pandan and gula melaka, complete the box. Each shell is made from Lemuel's own single-origin dark chocolate.

If you came for origin flavour rather than nostalgia, the 70% Tanzania Kokoa Kamili bar costs S$16.35. Plain bonbon boxes come in sixes at S$24, twelves at S$48 and eighteens at S$72. The drinking granules are 100% chocolate rather than cocoa powder: the 72% West African Blend, from Ivory Coast and Ghana beans, costs S$30.50, and the 85% Sierra Leone costs S$35.

Make the granules with hot milk, not water. Lemuel says so directly on the product page, because the granules are pure chocolate rather than a cocoa powder formula. The Sierra Leone is described as stone fruit and earthy, the better pick for a bittersweet palate, while the West African Blend is the house signature and the safer gift for someone who usually drinks supermarket hot chocolate.

The 70% single origins extend well beyond Tanzania: Honduras Copan and Mexico Tabasco bars cost S$16.35 each, and a Passport Gift Box of four single-origin bars costs S$65, which is the neatest way to taste across countries. There is also a 70% Malaysia Pahang drinking granule at S$30.50, a regional origin you rarely see in Singapore shops. Skip the gift card; buy the passport box instead.

Baked goods are a bigger part of the business than at most chocolate makers. Six Signature Dark Chocolate Macarons cost S$19.50, a Perfect Chocolat Mousse Cake costs S$75, and a 9.5-inch Flourless Chocolate cake costs S$98. BeanFolks Pops, a bag of assorted dragees, costs S$16.35. A mid-autumn gift set pairing six craft chocolate mooncakes with alcohol was listed at S$72.80 this season.

On 31 October at 7.30pm the café is hosting a free Halloween trivia night built around Disney questions, and guests are invited to come dressed as a favourite Disney character, with prizes and sweets for winners. Sign-up is through the website. Come on a different night if what you want is a quiet tasting with the chocolate makers.

Since there are no reservations, the simplest way to avoid waiting is to arrive at the 10am opening or after the lunch rush. The Star Vista sits a short walk from Buona Vista MRT, which is served by both the East-West and Circle Lines. If the café is full, take a bag of granules and a brownie box and eat them on the move.

Buona Vista is easy to pair with the rest of the west. Holland Village is one stop away on the Circle Line for an evening of bars and restaurants, and the Dempsey estate, with Mr Bucket's factory café at 13 Dempsey Road, is a short ride further east if you want to compare two Singapore chocolate makers on the same day.

Address: The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green, #01-04/05, Singapore 138617. Nearest MRT: Buona Vista. Hours: daily 10am to 9pm, last café orders 8.40pm, walk-ins only. Contact: hello@lemuelchocolate.com, no phone. Prices: Kopitiam Collection bar S$17.40, SG61 Local Delights Bundle S$61, box of 6 bonbons S$24, 6 Salted Blackout Brownies S$33, 72% drinking granules S$30.50. Whole cakes, from the S$75 mousse cake to the S$98 flourless cake, are worth ordering a few days ahead.