America’s 30 Best Chocolate Shops

Mendiants (discs of chocolate inset with fruit and nuts), nut clusters cloaked in chocolate, double-dipped chocolate cornflake “mountains,” and terrapin sliders (described as “chocolate swirled with our signature salted caramel, topped with butter pecans”) are among the unique offerings here. There are also a dozen truffle varieties, in dark, milk, and white chocolate, as well as chocolate bark and drinking chocolate.

Founded in 1998 in the city’s Cultural Arts District, The Best Chocolate in Town (which also sells coffee and ice cream) makes its own small-batch chocolate bars, truffles in 40 flavors, chocolate-robed peanut butter bon bons, and chocolate-covered popcorn, among other confections. There is also a selection of truffle pies with Oreo or house-made graham cracker crusts. Bourbon caramel and tiramisù are among the flavors.

Virginia-made Spice Rack Chocolates, a wide selection from the Belgian company Leonidas, chocolate pasta and chocolate-covered Twinkies, and chocolate specialties from France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, and other countries are among the offerings at this self-styled “chocolate nirvana.”

Vosges Haut-Chocolat founder Katrina Markoff was hailed by Food & Wine as “THE innovator in chocolate to lead the US through the next 30 years.” Her chocolates are all organic, ethically sourced, and produced in a platinum-LEED-certified plant. The Vosges collection includes a wide range of truffles, chocolate bars, and other confections, as well as a new line of Dalmore single malt scotch-infused chocolates.

Describing itself as “Salt Lake City’s guilty pleasure,” Hatch Family Chocolates is a (not surprisingly) family-owned business specializing in hand-dipped milk and dark chocolates, sold in assortments of varying sizes. Caramel chocolate apples and “grandma’s turtles” are also in the repertoire.

Part of the lively Asheville food scene, the Chocolate Fetish is famous for its truffles, but has also won praise for its Crunch Bars, chocolate rounds, and nut-filled frogs. Owners Sue and Bill Foley (she’s the chocolatier) also produce all-chocolate high heel shoes in what they call contemporary patterns.

Previously known as Biagio Fine Chocolate and then Cocova, this Dupont Circle chocolate shop carries more than 300 bars and other chocolate confections from around the world. This includes truffle assortments; bars from Venezuela, Haiti, Spain, Vietnam, and elsewhere; and chocolate gift baskets.

This Brentwood chocolate factory and shop (there are other locations in Hollywood and Century City) first opened in 1950, and claims Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley as early customers. Gwyneth Paltrow, Chrissy Teigen, and Drew Barrymore are said to be among today’s fans of “the nation’s hippest and most trendsetting chocolate shop” (as it describes itself). Truffles, chocolate-dipped fruits, and California-themed pretzel and popcorn milk bars are among the specialties — and, this being L.A., there is of course a line of vegan, organic, paleo, gluten-free, soy-free “superfood wellness chocolates,” too.

Dude, Sweet’s co-owner and chef, Katherine Clapner, was executive pastry chef for noted Texas chef Stephan Pyles before launching her own chocolate business. Her imaginative confections include When Pigs Fly Fudge (flavored with whiskey and maple syrup from Vermont’s WhistlePig Distillery), a Toga Party Bar (Valrhona Caramelia chocolate and togarashi, the Japanese spice mix), Black MMMole Toffee (soft chocolate butter toffee with house-made mole sauce), and a liquid One Night Stand Potion (dark chocolate, agave nectar, and 100 Años tequila.)

Stone-ground chocolate inspired by a trip to Oaxaca is the focus at this chocolate factory and store where all the cacao is ethically sourced directly from farmers. The collection includes an array of bars, flavored and otherwise; a selection of chocolate bark made with quinoa and toppings like almonds or toasted pumpkin seeds; Mexican-style chocolate discs; and chocolate-covered nuts and espresso beans.

An artisanal chocolate factory and shop in Old Town Alexandria, across the river from the nation’s capital, Blüprint keeps it simple, offering 16- or 24-piece chocolate boxes and two Inclusion Bars — milk chocolate crunch and dark chocolate black currant walnut — whose purchase, according to their packaging, “supports inclusiveness,” with proceeds going to the ACLU.

Descended from a confectionery shop opened by Italian immigrant Domingo Ghirardelli in San Francisco in 1852, Ghirardelli has become one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of chocolate. Its products are available seemingly everywhere and it operates 22 shops in seven states — including this one, which opened in Disneyland in 2011. Yelp reviewers love the free chocolate samples, the milkshakes and sundaes, the fudge-like brownies, and the “delicious Ghirardelli chocolate treats,” and call it “the paradise of chocolates.”

With four Seattle locations (plus one in Japan’s Nagoya airport), chocolatier Fran Bigelow is known for her chocolate-coated Gold Bars and salted caramels, her handcrafted truffle assortments, and her specialty chocolate collections. President Obama was given a gift assortment of Fran’s chocolates on a campaign stop in Seattle and liked them so much that after he took office he asked Bigelow to produce sea salt caramel chocolates in a blue box with the presidential seal for him to give to VIP guests at the White House.

An artisanal chocolate producer in Honolulu’s Manoa Valley, Choco le’a creates both regular and alcohol-spiked truffles, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, chocolate-dipped tropical fruits (including pomelo, a citrus fruit called jabong in Hawaii), and chocolate-covered Oreos, among other treats.

The Craftory, in the Houston suburb of Tomball, is part of Tejas Chocolate + Barbecue — quite possibly the world’s only combination chocolate factory and shop and barbecue joint. Scott Moore, together with his wife, Michelle Holland, and his brother Greg, started out making chocolate as a hobby and then opened a store. Sales were slow so they decided to add a café, and realized that their town needed some good barbecue. Their hand-crafted chocolate begins with cacao beans roasted in a brick oven, then stone-ground. Truffles in assorted flavors (and colors) are the specialty on the chocolate side.

“One of our goals at El Buen Cacao,” say the proprietors of this chocolate factory and shop in the mountains near Palm Springs, “is to offer simple chocolate characterized by quality.” They produce confections made with very few added ingredients, flavoring their bars with nothing but sea salt, black peppercorns, ghost peppers, espresso, freeze-dried raspberries — or nothing at all but cacao. Chocolate-covered fruits, fudge, and boxed assortments are also available.

Educator-turned-chocolatier Romeo Garcia sells numerous gift boxes of assorted chocolates, including special seasonal packages as well as chocolate-dipped strawberries, berry-flavored chocolate bars, and European-style drinking chocolate. He also hosts chocolate-tasting parties and chocolate-making workshops for both adults and kids.

In addition to a presence in retail stores in 11 states and the District of Columbia, Christopher Elbow — whose eponymous proprietor has worked in the kitchens of chefs Emeril Lagasse and Jean Joho, among others — has his own boutiques here and in Kansas City. The artisanal chocolates in question are brightly hued and varied, and Elbow’s chocolate bars come both in single origin versions and in such flavors as blueberry lavender and coffee cardamom.

This original location of John Kelly Chocolates, just east of fabled Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, started as a factory to produce confections for retail outlets around the country but evolved into a boutique chocolate shop as well (there’s a second location in Santa Monica). John Kelly produces a wide array of choices, including chocolates flavored with Hawaiian Alaea, French grey, or Himalayan pink salt; assorted bars (dark chocolate with habanero and jalapeño chiles; milk chocolate with roasted hazelnuts and Mediterranean sea salt; truffle fudge); and signature gift-box towers — stacks of assortments in different-sized packages.

Michael and Jacky Recchiuti launched their company in 1997, handcrafting small-batch confections with traditional European techniques. Their shop in San Francisco’s food-focused Ferry Building (there is another location, Recchiuti at theLab, in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood) offers everything from boxed assortments of truffles and other chocolates to salted ginger and almond bars to fudge brownies.

Portland is said to have more bean-to-bar chocolate makers than any other city in America. Creo, owned by Tim and Janet Straub and their son, Kevin, is a prime example. The Straubs source cacao beans directly from farmers and handle every aspect of processing them into chocolate themselves. Their bars include whiskey milk chocolate, caramelized white chocolate, and brown butter. There are truffle assortments and chocolate-covered malted milk balls, as well as several variations on sipping chocolate. They even sell chocolate mint lip balm and chocolate-scented candles.

While this Portland chocolate emporium stocks a large variety of bars and other chocolate confections from both domestic and international producers — including such well-known makers as Cluizel, Fran’s (see above), Recchiuti (see above), Dandelion (see below), and Valrhona — their specialty, as their name suggests, is chocolate to drink. On premises, they serve three house-made hot chocolates — French-style dark, spicy dark with coconut milk and ginger, and Venezuelan milk chocolate with cinnamon. They also sell two liquid cacao mixes, one 100% pure dark chocolate, the other a blend of 68% wild Bolivian and 74% organic Dominican chocolate.

“Kakawa” is the Olmec word for cacao, and this chocolate shop (there are three locations in the New Mexico capital) draws “on chocolate’s long history, re-creating original Mesoamerican and Colonial chocolate recipes.” Among other things, that means five different Mesoamerican “elixirs” for drinking, several varieties of solid dark chocolate, and roasted árbol chiles dipped in agave caramel and finished with 80% house blend dark chocolate.

Jean-Marc Gorce and his wife, Casimira N. Tobilla, opened their chocolate shop in North Beach in 1998 to produce truffles “created with a French attitude, hand-made in the USA.” Unlike most other chocolatiers, they don’t sell a range of bars or non-truffle chocolates — just their eponymous specialty, of which Gorce has thus far concocted 27 varieties. The highlights for one Yelp reviewer were “pomegranate, raspberry, and dark chocolate.”

Former farmer, brewer, and baker Aaron Barthel opened Intrigue in 2006. His truffles and truffle bars are mostly based on Belcolade Belgian chocolate. Though they are by no means all available at the same time, he has produced more than 200 varieties since he started, ranging from absinthe to Zen Dog Studio (flavored with rosebuds). His vividly flavored bars include one flavored with jasmine green tea, Turkish bay leaf, and lemon, and another involving guajillo chile, hibiscus, cassia cinnamon, and vanilla bean.

Theo’s flagship store and factory (tours and classes are offered) was founded in 2005, and, according to the Theo website, the company subsequently became the first organic fair-trade-certified chocolate maker in North America. Offerings include a variety of bars, both flavored and otherwise; peanut butter and almond butter cups; chocolate-covered caramels and marshmallows; and chocolate for baking and drinking.

Established in New York City in 1987 and now headquartered in Walpole, New Hampshire — there are Burdick shops in both those cities as well as Chicago and Boston, plus this one in Cambridge — this is a chocolatier whose reputation was largely built on mice. Chocolate mice, of course — tiny little creatures with string tails, inspired by those founder Larry Burdick helped make working at a confectionery in Bern, Switzerland, years ago. There’s much more to the selection than that, however — a wide choice of bars, individual chocolates and assortments, specially themed holiday novelties (like chocolate turkeys for Thanksgiving), and even, to complement the mice, chocolate elephants, proceeds from the sale of which go to an elephant rescue program in Kenya.

Hawaii is the only state in the U.S. that can grow cacao on a commercial basis, and this bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Honolulu County uses locally grown beans whenever possible. What they call their classic chocolate bar collection includes a “dark milk chocolate” bar made with goat’s milk, a dark chocolate entry made with Molokai sea salt, and one made with rum-soaked cacaococoa nibs. Cocoa powder, chocolate tea, and a solid one-pound block of chocolate are also available.

This bean-to-bar chocolate factory was opened by a couple of chocolate hobbyists in 2010. Classic bars containing high percentages of cacao from Belize, Ecuador, Madagascar, Vietnam, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere anchor the collection here. More unusual items include black sesame toffee brittle with chocolate, chocolate-based cocktail bitters, and chocolate-covered crickets.

Ginger Elizabeth Hahn worked under noted French pastry chef and chocolatier Jacques Torres and other masters of the craft before opening a wholesale chocolate operation in 2005, followed by this retail shop in 2008. (A second shop opened in San Francisco in 2017.) Hahn sells attractive gift boxes, a selection of bars both straightforward and imaginatively flavored (one has caramelized oats, pecans, and Bing cherries; another involved peanuts, wildflower honey, and graham crackers), and macarons — some filled with chocolate ganache.