A new shop is opening up in Norwich city centre where the handmade cosmetic business Lush used to be situated.

Called Montezuma's, it is a chocolate shop started in 2000 by two lawyers based in West Sussex and currently with five shops across the UK including in London.

The Norwich shop, on the corner of Gentleman's Walk is currently being refurbished with an aim of opening later this month.

It comes as another new chocolate shop, Dotti, recently opened in Bedford Street.

Both come after Norwich lost its olde worlde chocolate shop, Digby's after owner Digby Eddison pulled out of the city to relocate to Cromer years ago and the former unit in the Royal Arcade then re-opened briefly as The English Chocolate Company, before it closed earlier this year.

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The Montezuma's website states the firm was started by husband and wife team Simon and Helen Pattinson. "We started Montezuma's, our little chocolate business, in 2000 with only a kitchen sink sized machine, huge enthusiasm, spades of naivety and most importantly, a broad ideal to bring chocolate innovation to a boring and staid British chocolate market," the owners state.

"With the exception of that first machine, little has changed and the childish enthusiasm we shared exploring South America in 1999 largely wakes up with us every morning; although we now have three little girls who rise before dawn every day.

"Being lawyers-turned self-taught chocolate makers has meant steep learning curves and often re-inventing the wheel but everything we do is carried out with a passion for creating chocolate we want to eat in an environment we enjoy. That we certainly didn't train for or indeed expect in our wildest dreams was that a business started on a shoestring would become arguably Britain's most innovative chocolate brand with a reputation far bigger than our actual footprint."

The unit in Norwich was vacated by Lush after the firm moved into Chapelfield last October after 15 years and then it became a women's clothing store before that business moved out.

TIt has just launched a range of nearly 10 different advent calendars too.