Chocolates & Wafers

In 1842, at the intersection of Vissis and Aeolou Streets in Athens, the first pastry shop in Greece was opened. The well-known "Pavlidou's Confectionery" by Spyridon Pavlidis. The store was a hangout for Athenian society. It offered traditional sweets, such as kataifi, baklava, delicacies in various flavors, sweets, and so-called confetti. Cocoa and its derivatives, like chocolate, were still unknown to the Greeks at that time.

In 1843 Pavlidis wanted to develop the pastry shop, which was very successful and to enrich it with new products. He started traveling to Europe and beyond. He visited many cities, such as Paris, Vienna, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid, and others. He was attending exhibitions with new products and innovative machinery. So he slowly got to know and entered the world of chocolate.

When he returned to Greece in 1852, he founded the "Confectionery Workshop". He cut the cocoa with the coffee grinder he had imported from Poland and began serving chocolate at the pastry shop. In the Christmas of 1860, he traveled once more to Paris. From there he brought a handmade chocolate maker with which he made the first tablet of health chocolate, named after the famous "Pavlidos Ygeias Chocolate".