founder antoine dufour headquarters piccadilly london england products chocolates truffles assortments owner bill keeling nick crean website www.prestat.co.uk products by prestat 2011 prestat ltd is one of london s oldest chocolate shops . it has been awarded two royal warrants from her majesty the queen and her late majesty queen elizabeth the queen mother . 1 contents 1 history 2 products 3 notable customers 4 references 5 external links history edit prestat ltd was established in 1902 by french migr antoine dufour . 2 the dufour family created the chocolate truffle in chamb ry in france in december 1895 3 but it only became widely available when the new creation was brought to england by antoine dufour with the opening of the first prestat shop in south molton street in central london . antoine dufour for reasons uncertain named his business prestat after pierre prestat who was his wife s first cousin 2 and some of the earlier packaging has the company s name as p. prestat . antoine dufour opened a further two shops one at 405 oxford street and a second at 28 st swithin s lane in the city of london financial district . antoine dufour passed the business on to his son tony dufour who ran prestat through to the late 1950s . the difficulties of trading during the second world war led to the closure of the oxford street and st swithin s lane stores and tony dufour eventually sold the business to brothers neville and maxwell croft . the company received royal warrants as purveyors of chocolates to queen elizabeth ii in 1975 and to queen elizabeth the queen mother in 1999 . nominated as one of the world s top three chocolate shops by the economist in 2003 4 prestat s current flagship store is at 14 princes arcade piccadilly and in march 2009 prestat opened within the chocolate hall of harrods . its current range of packaging is the work of designer and artist kitty arden who in 2000 collaborated with lulu guinness the handbag designer to create a limited edition handbag in the design of the prestat shop . 5 prestat is currently owned by half brothers nick crean and william keeling who bought prestat from the company s third owner stanley cohen in october 1998 . the company products are now sold in leading stores including harrods selfridges liberty & co. and john lewis partnership and fine food shops throughout the uk . prestat exports its chocolates to countries including japan australia singapore dubai switzerland germany and the netherlands . 2 products edit more recently in november 2007 prestat s history launched the choxi range of chocolate bars . these are uniquely processed to preserve cocoa s natural antioxidants . 6 in february 2011 a box featuring a billowing union jack with gold bunting was launched to celebrate the royal wedding of prince william and catherine middleton . for easter 2011 a new range of easter parade boxes was designed by kitty arden ; it is part of the company s tradition that it presents the monarch an easter egg each year . notable customers edit prestat has had a long history of celebrity customers from the actress sarah bernhardt in the 1910s through to sir john gielgud and dame peggy ashcroft in the 1950s princess diana in the 1990s and stephen fry adrian lester and peter mandelson today . 2 7 roald dahl author of charlie and the chocolate factory made prestat truffles central to his racy novel my uncle oswald . in this novel a scheming temptress seduces numerous geniuses and royalty of the 20th century with a love potion inserted into prestat truffles . references edit www.royalwarrant.org a b c d http www.prestat.co.uk http www.mairie chambery.fr the economist 2003 http www.luluguinness.com http www.choxiplus.com http www.ft.com cms s 0 6a0ca6fe 1b07 11de 8aa3 0000779fd2ac.html nclick check 1 external links edit media related to prestat at wikimedia commons official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title prestat & oldid 738194690 categories 1902 establishments in the united kingdombritish brandsbritish royal warrant holderschocolate companiespiccadillyretail companies established in 1902hidden categories commons category with page title same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages add links this page was last modified on 7 september 2016 at 13 53 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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