Best Chocolate Shop in Every State

Open since 2017, Chocolatá uses 100% single-origin, ethically sourced chocolate from Latin America. The shop offers an array of gift boxes (for Valentine’s Day, for instance), as well as hand-crafted chocolate bars and “chocolate charcuterie” — “salami” made with chocolate, pralines, biscotti, and other non-pork ingredients.

Taiwanese-born chocolatier Ingrid Shim’s specialties at this five-year-old Anchorage shop are chocolate domes the diameter of silver dollars, filled with unusual flavor combinations like raspberry rose and caramelized pear with saffron and hand-painted with colorful tops inspired by the Aurora Borealis.

This fourth-generation family-owned business sells an array of nuts, brittles, toffees, and barks, as well as chocolate bars, fudge, and other chocolate specialties. Their Arizona Western box features chocolates shaped like cowboy boots, saddles, cacti, and other Old West icons.

This “bean to bar” chocolate shop sources much of its chocolate from Uganda. The company’s specialties include a small collection of bars named for states (Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma) and several Arkansas cities.

John Kelly started out as a wholesale chocolate factory in Hollywood, spawning first a Hollywood boutique and later a second location in Santa Monica. The brand is popular with Hollywood celebrities. There is no John Kelly, however: The company is run by business partners John Kelson and Kelly Green.

Proprietor Paul Tamburello christened this ice cream parlor and chocolate shop with his late mother’s nickname. In addition to chocolate, chunky chocolate peanut butter, salted Oreo, and vegan chocolate ice creams (and other flavors including bananas Foster and holy cannoli), Sweet Cooie’s offers a selection of house-made chocolate truffles.

Using high-end chocolate imported from France, Belgium, and Switzerland, this New Haven confectionery offers a wide selection of gelato flavors, chocolate-based and otherwise, as well as almost 30 different chocolate candies. Often in unusual shapes and dramatically decorated, these include such variations as acai­ pomegranate dark chocolate, apple pie milk chocolate, and chai white chocolate.

The Govatos family has been in the chocolate business since 1894, and uses recipes that have been handed down through the generations. They sell individual confections as well as chocolate samplers — chocolate caramels, butter cream candies, truffles, and chocolate pretzels are among the choices — at locations in Wilmington and nearby Talleyville and also run a Wilmington restaurant.

This Jacksonville outpost of a 22-unit chain (all of them in Florida except for one each in Georgia and Alabama) gets high marks from Yelp reviewers for its chocolate-covered Oreos, popcorn, and pretzels. Also popular are hand-dipped Ritz peanut butter crackers and potato chips in dark and light (and sometimes white) chocolate.

Founded in 1947, Kilwins has grown into a 130-unit chain up and down the Eastern Seaboard and as far west as Colorado. An array of ice creams, chocolates, brittles, and fudge, among other things, are on the menu. Yelpers especially salute the fresh waffle cones and the free samples.

Hawaii is the only state in the country whose climate allows it to grow cacao commercially, and Manoa uses as much of the locally grown product as possible for its bean-to-bar specialties. Hawaiian sea salt and coffee are also incorporated into some products.

New owners Jason and Trish Stack, who bought this 15-year-old confectionery last year, produce handcrafted truffles, clusters, turtles, barks, dipped fruits, and other chocolate confections, as well as chocolate hearts and hand-painted high-heel shoes for Valentine’s Day.

Drinking chocolate, hand-dipped truffles, honey caramels, and marshmallows are among the specialties here. The shop uses cream from a herd of 500 central Illinois Jersey cows, and substitutes local wildflower honey for corn syrup in its recipes. It produce a total of 175 flavors of candy every year, including limited-edition seasonal offerings.

Founded in 1998, this shop in Indianapolis’s downtown Cultural Arts District turns out a selection of chocolate bars, hand-dipped decorated truffles, and other confections. They also specialize in an assortment of truffle pies — like dense chocolate mousse, variously flavored, in a graham cracker or Oreo crust.

Since 2001, this eastern Iowa chocolate shop has won praise for their peanut butter cups, creme brulee truffles, and hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows and real whipped cream, among other specialties.

Cocoa Dolce calls its two Wichita locations not chocolate shops but chocolate lounges. They offer not only a wide range of truffles, bars, and other chocolate items, but also gelato, macarons, coffee, and a full bar, including wine and beer selections and three different chocolate martinis.

Art Eatables is a chocolate shop whose website requires viewers to certify that they’re at least 21 years old. Why? Because their signature confections are truffles filled with Wild Turkey or Jim Beam bourbon, Jameson Irish whiskey, Bulleit 95 rye, and other spirits. Alcohol-free candies, including layered and laminated chocolate lollipops and caramels enrobed in white, milk, or dark chocolate, are also available.

Sucre — the name means “sweet” in French — has three boutiques and a restaurant around New Orleans. They’re known for their samplers (for instance, the Avery Salted Caramel Chocolate Collection), unusual chocolate bars (one is flavored with Sicilian pistachios and candied rose petals), and macarons (some of them chocolate-covered), as well as for an unusual take on the traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras king cake, filled with chocolate cream cheese accented with Tabasco Habanero Sauce.

Descended from a business founded in the 1920s by the eponymous Libby, who was once Winslow Homer’s houseboy and later taught music to Rudy Vallee, this confectionery sells popcorn, taffy, and maple sugar candy as well as chocolates. Their commitment to the last of these, though, is suggested by the fact that their store displays a life-size chocolate moose, sculpted out of 1,700 pounds of milk chocolate. Smaller, more easily edible moose are fashioned out of dark and milk chocolate. There are also chocolate Maine lobsters, truffles, bonbons, and chocolate-draped wild Maine blueberry clusters.

Since 1866, the specialty at the D.C.-area confectionery has been handcrafted caramels, many of them involving chocolate. Both chewy American-style and softer European-style caramels are produced. In addition, Velatis makes Belgian chocolates in many shapes, including musical instruments, alligators, and even the U.S. Capitol, as well as an assortment of truffles and other items.

Taza chocolates makes stone-ground chocolate using ethically sourced beans bought at a premium above the Fair Trade price. The products, available by mail order, in retail outlets, and at Taza’s factory store in suburban Boston, include a variety of dark chocolate bars and what they call Mexicano Discs, thick rounds of chocolate flavored with cinnamon, coffee, chiles, and other things.

At Bon Bon Bon, a team of women who call themselves the Babes Babes Babes fashion coffer-shaped chocolates in more than 20 varieties with mostly whimsical names, including Hazel-What?, Killer Cereal, Lil Hottie, and Beach Bum Berry. They’re available only by the box, either preselected or “build your own.”

The U.S. branch of the 174-year-old Swiss chocolate company Lindt is headquartered in New Hampshire, but operates more than 50 shops around the country, mostly in malls and outlet centers — including this one at the massive Mall of America, near the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. The company’s Lindt bars, Lindor truffles, and assorted chocolate boxes, as well as their recently introduced no-sugar-added bars are all on offer.

This Colorado-based chain — a candy manufacturer, retailer, and franchiser — operates more than 350 outlets in the U.S. and Canada, plus one each in South Korea, the Philippines, and Panama and four in the United Arab Emirates. Like its many siblings, the Ridgeland store typically offers as many as 100 different items throughout the year and more over holiday periods. Chocolate bars, fudge, truffles, caramels, and many other choices are available.

Christopher Elbow translated his experience as a chef to the production of hand-crafted confections, opening this shop in 2003. His signature bars include Toasted Almond Mayan Sea Salt, Blueberry Lavender, and Crème Brûlée White Chocolate, as well as craft chocolate bars from Tanzania, Ecuador, Vietnam, and other countries. Caramelized white chocolate malt balls are a specialty.

Wlady and Shannon Hughes Grochowski operate two shops in Bozeman, producing a wide range of colorfully decorated chocolates in assorted shapes. Dark chocolate with black and pink peppercorns, white chocolate with nutmeg and rum, and milk chocolate with vodka, coconut, and Chambord liqueur are among the flavors.

With ten stores in six states, plus five more in Holland, this Dutch chocolate company, founded in 1913, produces chocolate bars and medallions, about three dozen kinds of bonbons, and baking chocolate and chocolate drops.

Chocolatier Krysta Bea Jackson’s shop features truffles and bonbons flavored with coconut, limoncello, Peruvian golden berries (ground cherries), vanilla with glaced figs, and 10-year-old Laphroaig single malt scotch, among other things. Yelpers describe the chocolates as “incredible” and “the best chocolates I’ve tasted in years.”

Former physicist Richard Tango-Lowy studied chocolate making in France, Italy, and Canada, and opened Dancing Lion in 2007. He makes artistically decorated bars (one is called the Picasso Bar) and packages his bonbons in handmade boxes from Nepal, describing his chocolates as “limited edition works of art.” Each one is made in quantities of between 20 and 200, and Tango-Lowy says he has never repeated a recipe.

Brothers Richard and Fred Stancampiano, who had formerly run an ice cream parlor in Jersey City, opened Al Richards in 1978. Yelpers like their chocolate salted caramels, classic truffles, and array of chocolate-covered fruits.

This chocolate and coffee shop (their website promises “Portland style espresso”) produces an impressive lineup of truffles, bonbons, bars, toffees, fudges, caramel apples, and more, using premium American-made chocolate from Guittard in San Francisco.

This Greenwich Village location of the massive ROYCE’ chocolate company, founded in Hokkaido in 1983, is one of the company’s 16 U.S. boutiques (half of them within branches of the Japanese Mitsuwa Marketplace supermarket chain). Bars, truffles, pralines, chocolate-frosted cookies, and chocolate-covered potato chips are among the offerings, and a specialty is green tea chocolate — white chocolate infused with matcha powder.

The Dietz and Ciordia families opened their store in 2011, having first sold their wares at regional farmers markets and local retail shops. Barks are something of a specialty, including such unusual variations as blueberry chili chocolate, roasted pecan cherry chocolate with sea salt, and white chocolate cardamom.

This fourth-generation candy company got its start in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1885, with subsequent openings in Crookston, Minnesota; Grand Forks, North Dakota; and finally Fargo, in 1990 (all but the Dubuque store are still in business). Caramels, truffles, turtles, chocolate roses, and other items are available, and a signature product is the company’s “Chippers” — Red River Valley potato chips covered with milk, dark, or white almond chocolate.

This family-owned bean-to-bar chocolatier, launched in 2013, sells its wares in retail stores across the country, as well as in its own factory store in Cincinnati, where customers can watch (and smell) chocolate being made. Using ethically produced cacao beans, Maverick makes an array of bars, from single-origin dark chocolate varieties to gingerbread or lemon lavender white chocolate.

As the first half of its name might suggest, this shop sells a lot of popcorn in specialty flavors, some of them involving chocolate (caramels and toffee with nuts and chocolate, white chocolate peppermint), but they also sell a wide range of candies, including truffles, peanut butter chocolate toffee, and several kinds of fudge.

The Staub family sources Ecuadorian heirloom cacao beans to hand-craft their assortment of bars, chocolate-covered malt balls, truffles, sipping chocolate and brewing cocoa, chef’s chocolate — and even chocolate mint lip balm.

Fudge in some 35 variations (including birthday cake, cinnamon nut roll, and Dreamsicle), a dozen kinds of truffle, and store-made Buckeyes, barks, and chocolate-coated pretzels are among the creations at this shop opened in 2014 by Nina Midgley and her parents. A unique if rather curious specialty is the chocolate-dipped bottle of wine — the customer brings in the wine and the shop coats it in a layer of chocolate that falls off for eating when the cork is popped.

This reservation-only “gourmet tea room” also sells a good selection of baked goods and homemade chocolates, including truffles and chocolate caramels. (Chocolate bread and chocolate cupcakes are among the non-candy chocolate items available.)

Since 2007, Gail van Welsen’s boutique has made European-style truffles (some in unusual flavors like Guinness stout and strawberry pepper) and also imported them from Belgium and Switzerland. Chocolate toffees, peanut and other nut clusters, and five varieties of chocolate-covered strawberries — two of them sugar-free — are also on the menu.

Mary “Chip” Tautkus opened Chubby Chipmunk in the old gold rush town of Deadwood in 2005. Back in the ’70s, she had a small bakery of that name in her native Southern California. She offers about 30 varieties of truffles. The Hot Mama is seasoned with habanero, jalapeno, and chipotle chiles; the Chipmunk Treasure involves toffee, praline, coconut, almonds, and both milk and dark chocolate.

Brad Hamlett opened this shop in 1995 with his father, Jim, and now runs it with his wife, Joy. They sell Knoxville-, Nashville-, and Tennessee-branded bars, bonbon assortments, chocolate popcorn, and their best-selling signature Tennessee Walking Sticks — pretzel rods coated in caramel, rolled in pecans, and dipped in milk or dark chocolate.

An only-in-Texas combination chocolate shop and barbecue joint, the Craftory buys premium cacao beans from around the world and slow-roasts them in a custom-built brick oven. The results include single-origin tasting squares, chocolate bars, and salted chocolate caramels.

Calling itself “Salt Lake City’s guilty pleasure,” Hatch Chocolates is a fourth-generation family business that opened its current store in 2003. It sells assorted hand-dipped chocolates and such specialty confections as caramel chocolate apples and “Grandma’s Turtles.”

This company’s proprietor, Jim Lampman, started making truffles for the staff of his Ice House Restaurant in Burlington in 1983, then transitioned into full-time chocolate-making. Today, he and his family run a factory store and cafe and a cafe/shop in Burlington, and another cafe/shop in nearby Waterbury. In addition to truffles and a line of “chocolates of Vermont” embossed with evocations of the state’s natural beauty (sugar maple leaves, a beehive with wildflowers, etc.), Lake Champlain makes several varieties of drinking chocolate, plus bars, coins and squares, baking chocolate, and dessert sauces.

Bonbons flavored with Earl Grey tea, 12-year-old Cragganmore single malt whisky, lavender honey, and figs with orange blossoms are a few of the items produced on site by proprietors Kim and Bruce Gustafson. They also sell bars made by quality bean-to-bar producers in Vietnam, Switzerland, the UK, and Illinois.

Fleur’s Mike Sherlock was an ironworker for 30 years before retiring (briefly) and then buying this cafe and shop and learning how to make chocolate. His creations include Irish coffee, butter pecan, and wild cherry truffles; four kinds of fudge; caramel chews; and three kinds of nut clusters.

Swiss-born Fritz Holl started making chocolates in his home kitchen in 1986, soon moved to a storefront nearby, and opened the current location in 1990. Today, Holl’s son and daughter-in-law run the operation, producing Swiss-style truffles and bonbons, five different barks, chocolate lollipops, and more.

With three stores in Milwaukee and vicinity, Indulgence owner Julie Waterman and head chocolatier Mariana Cyr note in their mission statement that “we are not about doing unusual for the sake of unusual…we’re not interested in making something for shock value that you’ll likely try once and probably never want again.” What they do instead is produce classic versions of truffles, bars, toffees, chocolate-dipped fruit, and seasonal specialties like peppermint bark and dark chocolate snowmen.

Proprietor Tim Kellogg, a chocolatier in a cowboy hat, got his start making truffles and brownies to sell at the Cody Stampede in 2004 to raise money for a new saddle. He took to chocolate-making and today produces numerous kinds of tablettes (the French term for bars), truffles, and barks, as well as four kinds of brownies.