For the price of a Kinder Surprise Easter egg (or a Quality Street Easter egg for concessions), a golden entry ticket to the newest exhibition at the M Shed opening today can take you on a journey through the history of chocolate, from coco beans to its manufacture in Bristol when the Fry’s factory dominated the city centre:

Nostalgia fans will be in for a treat with bars and wrappers from over the years. More than 500 objects from Bristol Museums Service’s collections are on display, dating back to 1729, including the last Fry’s chocolate bar, the original recipes for Turkish Delights and the metal moulds in a mock-up of a chocolate factory.

The exhibition is not just about history, however, and also features samples from chocolates still made in Bristol including Guilbert’s on Small Street.

One wall has the words of a poem, entitled Quidnunc, from 1902:

For three long nights the Colston Hall
Was crammed from top to bottom,
By Young and old, Short and tall,
From Bedminster – and Cotham:
In praise of Fry’s pure Chocolate,
Thro’ tea, its close relation,
But mainly, p’rhaps, to celebrate,
King Edward’s Coronation.

The temporary exhibition runs until May and could go some way to sweeten the tooth of those looking forward to the opening of the £2.5 million Chocolate Harbour venture, which was promised to open in 2011 next to the Watershed, but never quite became the promised “mother ship for the tourist industry in Bristol”.

Chocolate! costs £5 and £4 for concessions. For more information, visit www.mshed.org/whats-on/exhibitions/chocolate!/.