WonkaNation: Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination

November 14th, 2012 by justJENN

If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it…in Hollywood and Highland. No, seriously candy fans, I have been to mecca and it is glorious. Candy lovers of all ages will be transported to a sugary world at Sweet in Hollywood.

On the second floor of Hollywood and Highland right next to the Kodak Theater, award winning window displays will welcome you to paradise. 30,000 square feet of candy awaits including the Wonka boutique – the exclusive home to the Wonka Inventing Room where you can experience the new line of Wonka inspired chocolates, truffles and fudge.

There are 12 separate boutiques, each of them themed out to feature unique candies. You’ll see a lollipop forest, a wall of custom colored m&ms, every jelly bean imaginable, even chocolate shoes! The boutiques even extend outside of the store, including one of the most terrifying yet adorable things ever, a marshmallow shop overseen by the Staypuft Marshmallow Man himself.

At the Candy Lab you make your own custom candy bar. Per the menu, yes you can actually add Hot Cheetos to your candy bar. There are tasting machines that dispense small ‘tastes’ of candies for a few dollars. Raspberry Kit Kat bars only available in Japan? Here’s your chance to taste one for yourself. In the dead center of it all is a real Ferrari. What does it do? Power a gumball machine, what else? For a small fee you can ‘drive’ gumballs over 700 feet of track right into your waiting hands.

That’s just the tip of the candy coated iceberg. The back of the store is dedicated to “Sticky” an Australian candy company that hand makes hard candy right before your eyes. Light and sweet, the candies come in every flavor imaginable and are perfect for gift giving. They even do custom orders with your names printed right into the candy!

Then there’s the room that scares me – the “Yucky” room where candy is dispensed from toilets and urinals. Um, I’ll let you discover that one for yourself.

What I’m doing here is saving the best for last, my favorite room in all 30,000 square feet was the Wonka Inventing Room! Scenes and sounds from the movie play and you’ll quickly noticed that you are totally immersed in the movie. Everlasting Gobstoppers! Wonka bars! Chocolate pencils that really write! A GOLDEN EGG made out of edible 23 carat gold!!

All of Wonka’s greatest inventions are in this room along with knick knacks that he picked up from all his travels abroad. The detail of this room is remarkable and a dream come true for fans of the book. Along the bar there are gorgeous hand embellished candies from smores filling to potato chip filling. I tasted them all and I when I tried the Snozzberry I just had to say it, ‘The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.’

The length of the room is an ornate candy bar, not ‘candy bar’ though there are those as well, but a candy ‘bar’ as in an array of artisnal candies inspired by the Wonka. If you remember in the book there were ‘Square candies that looked round’ here they took a little liberty with that but yes, these are looking ‘around’ as all the candies have expressions courtesy of edible googly eyes. Each eye defines a different filling.

This is truly a candy wonderland, a fantastic destination for tourists and locals alike. The longer you spend here and look around you’ll find secret touches you might have missed, very much like what you’d think Wonka’s factory would actually be like. As I reluctantly left, I stepped on the giant Nestle Crunch one last time so I could hear the satisfying loud ‘CRUNCH’ one last time.

Sweet! Hollywood
6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Suite 201
Hollywood, CA
www.sweetlosangeles.com

*Disclosure: I was invited by Nestle and WonkaNation to a private reception for this event with no monetary compensation. All opinions are my own*