Fawlty detailed chocolate topping to friend, essentially (9)
I believe the answer is:
basically
'essentially' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'fawlty detailed chocolate topping to friend' is the wordplay.
'fawlty' becomes 'Basil' (Basil Fawlty of the sitcom Fawlty Towers).
'detailed' means to remove the last letter (the tail of the word is removed).
'chocolate' becomes 'c' (this might be a standard abbreviation I've not previously seen).
'topping' says to put letters next to each other.
'to friend' becomes 'ally' (an ally is a friend or supporter).
'basil' with its last letter taken off is 'basi'.
'basi'+'c'+'ally'='BASICALLY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for basically that I've seen before include "Mostly" , "Fundamentally" .)