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The 15 Best Gourmet Chocolates of 2024

Give the gift of chocolate this February with these high-end confections

Gourmet chocolates we recommend on a light brown background

The Spruce Eats / Amelia Manley

Chocolates—especially fancy chocolates—are nearly always a great choice for a gift. Whether for Valentine's Day, birthday, graduation, wedding, retirement, housewarming, or just-because treat-yourself present, a box of high-end confections is an ideal present. (Might we suggest pairing it with a bottle of wine that compliments the cocoa flavors?)

The problem is there are just so many choices, with artisanal chocolatiers big and small, all over the country (and world) selling their creations online.

zChocolat Romantic 12-Piece

A collection of heart-shaped chocolates from zChocolat

zChocolat

The world-class French chocolatiers at zChocolat have lovingly crafted Valentine's treats that you won't soon forget. This particular set of stunning and flavorful hearts comes in four styles: dark chocolate filled with hazelnut ganache, milk chocolate with hazelnut praline, a set of red-colored ginger praline chocolate hearts, and white chocolate with vanilla-flavored ganache. The hand-crafted treats adhere to strict and masterful French standards that make them ideal for Valentine's Day.

Includes: 4 dark chocolate hazelnut ganache hearts, 4 hazelnut praline hearts, 4 ginger praline hearts, 4 white chocolate vanilla hearts

Seattle Chocolate Berry in Love Gift Set

Seattle Chocolate Berry in Love Gift Set

Seattle Chocolate

Why settle for one chocolate bar when you can indulge in an entire box? This Valentine's Day gift set is perfect for a chocolate-loving loved one. In addition to a traditional heart-shaped box of chocolate truffles (in a fun assortment of flavors), there are also three delicious gourmet chocolate bars with fun names: Tart & Soul, Berry in Love, and Like You a Latte. Mini Jcoco chocolate bars round out the collection with inventive flavors of mango plantain, orange blossom espresso, and black fig pistachio.

Includes: Assorted chocolate truffles (white chocolate raspberry, milk chocolate, hazelnut butter, salted almond, Mexican hot chocolate, dark chocolate), 3 chocolate truffle bars (milk chocolate espresso, dark chocolate strawberry, dark and white chocolate with raspberry, lemon, and biscotti), 3 mini Jcoco chocolate bars (mango plantain, orange blossom espresso, black fig pistachio), illustrated Valentine's Day postcard

Harry & David Dark Chocolate-Covered Luxury Collection

Dark Chocolate-Covered Luxury Collection

Harry & David

From the guys who practically invented gourmet-food gifting, Harry & David's dark-chocolate truffles are traditional, delicious, and packed to ship perfectly. This box includes 24 truffles filled with flavored ganache, four each in blueberry, raspberry, cherry, espresso, chocolate decadence, and extra-dark chocolate. The truffles come in a pretty red box tied up with a satin bow for an elegant presentation for Valentine's Day or other special occasion.

Includes:
24 total truffles in 6 varieties

Uncommon Goods Broken Heart Chocolate Pizza

Broken Heart Chocolate Pizza & Mallet

Uncommon Goods

Could there be a better Valentine's Day present than a giant chocolate heart you get to smash up and devour? From Pennsylvania confectioner Neil Edley, this huge milk-chocolate "pizza crust" base is topped with crushed pretzels, cookies, potato chips, and chocolate gems, then drizzled with white chocolate to make an incredibly decadent treat. But half the fun is the way you eat this pizza! It comes with a cheeky little wooden mallet for breaking the heart into bite-size pieces.

Dimensions: 9x9x3 inches | Weight: 12 ounces

Compartes 20 Piece Signature Truffles Gift Box

Compartes Gourmet Truffles

Compartes

Compartés is a veritable treasure trove of gourmet chocolate. From truly unique chocolate bars (such as bourbon pecan pie) to delicious fruits (including chocolate-dipped peaches), Compartés has something for everyone. The 20 Piece Signature collection is filled with bite-sized chocolates that dazzle both the eyes and the tongue. The colorful candies come in a variety of rotating flavors. Each one is lovingly crafted by hand in Los Angeles.

Includes: 10-20 assorted chocolate truffles

Kreuther Handcrafted Chocolate Chef's Collection

CHEFS SELECTION - 24 PIECE

Gold Belly

New York City restaurant Gabriel Kreuther has two Michelin stars and an attached sweets shop, where the kitchen's illustrious crew of pastry chefs and chocolatiers run wild with creative ideas. The menu changes frequently, but the bonbons and truffles on offer might include gingerbread, salted butter caramel, honey saffron, bananas Foster, carrot cake, peanut beer pretzel, Mexican hot chocolate, and lots more. This assortment includes two dozen pieces of the shop's latest creations and varies depending on when you order it.

Includes:
24 assorted chocolates

See's Candies Create Your Custom Mix Chocolates

See's Candies Create Your Own Custom Mix Chocolates

See's Candies

Los Angeles favorite See's Candies turned 100 in 2021, and its old-fashioned treats are still beloved by locals and visitors. You don't have to go into a store to create a custom box of chocolates, though. The See's website lets you build your own package of between 1 and 5 pounds, selecting from a menu of 70 different chocolates to fill it. There are ganache truffles, fruit creams, chocolate-covered nuts, and more, all with lists of ingredients so you can avoid allergens (or dislikes). The standard box is See's iconic logo on a white rectangle, but there's also a red heart option for Valentine's or other romantic gifts.

Includes
: Up to 26 assorted chocolates per pound (up to 130 for the 5-pound box)

Jcoco Bar 5 Milk + White Chocolate Bars

Bar 5 Milk + White

Seattle Chocolate

The Seattle Chocolate Company created the Jcoco brand to highlight its fine Peruvian-sourced chocolate with unusual but delicious flavors. This "bookcase" includes four 47-percent-cacao milk chocolate bars and one white chocolate bar with mango plantain, Himalayan sea salt and toffee, edamame sea salt and crisp quinoa sesame, and cayenne Veracruz orange. The unusual gourmet combinations are delicious, and the bars also help fight food insecurity: For every item sold, Jcoco donates meals to food banks in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. Since 2012, the brand has provided almost four million servings of food for hungry people.

Includes:
5 (1-ounce) bars

Vosges Dark Chocolate Truffle Collection

Vosges Dark Chocolate Truffle Collection

Vosges Chocolate

Horseradish, lemon zest, hazelnut, and chocolate. Absinthe, star anise, fennel, and chocolate. Ginger, wasabi, matcha, and chocolate. They're not exactly classic combinations, but they are amazing. Chicago's Vosges Haut-Chocolat specializes in truffles filled with unexpected flavors, and this 16-piece box offers a nice overview of the chocolatier's creations. Other ingredients you'll find in the adventurous collection include balsamic vinegar, paprika, ancho and guajillo peppers, and fennel pollen. (Those aren't all in the same truffle, of course!) It's a one-of-a-kind tasting experience.

One of our editors, Taylor, taste-tested these for our best gift baskets roundup and said, "These chocolates were the fanciest chocolates I've ever received. They're almost too pretty to eat. They were really chic, each with a vibrant peppering of flavor on top: matcha, paprika, coconut ash, and more. If I had to pick just one way to describe them, it would be that they look expensive."

Includes: 16 total dark-chocolate truffles in 11 varieties

vosges dark chocolate truffles in the packaging

The Spruce Eats / Taylor Rock

Sugarfina Cold Brew Cordials

COLD BREW CORDIALS

Sugarfina

Coffee lovers can now celebrate by having their cold brew and chocolate all at once. Bite into one of these spheres of dark chocolate and you'll get a splash of liquid coffee inside. Sugarfina is a relative newcomer to the candy/chocolate market, but it's doing something different: taking favorite childhood candies and turning them into new and improved treats for grownups.

This includes great packaging and design and sophisticated flavor combinations. Each candy comes in small cubes (there are about a dozen cold brew cordials to the cube), which you can purchase on their own or collect into a custom "candy bento box." There is an array of other fun Sugarfina options, including chocolate-coated peanut butter cookie dough, bourbon caramels, and gummies flavored with real pineapple, tequila, Champagne, and lots more.

Size:
3-4 ounces

Ethel M Chocolates Cherry Cordial Collection

THE CHERRY CORDIAL COLLECTION, 12-PIECE PREMIUM CHOCOLATE ASSORTMENT BOX

Ethel M

The gourmet-chocolate arm of the multinational company behind M&Ms, Ethel M makes small batches of complex creations by hand in a factory just outside Las Vegas. Its cordials use Italian marasca cherries, a deeply flavored sour variety that's great in sweets, along with aged brandy, coating both in dark chocolate. A layer of red cocoa butter on top completes the gorgeous look.

Includes:
12 cordials

Fortnum & Mason Chocolate Nut Selection

Fortnum's Chocolate Nut Selection

Fortnum & Mason

Anyone who's nuts for nuts will love Fortnum's Chocolate Nut Selection. The box includes both milk and dark chocolate treats with a mixture of marzipan, Brazil nuts, almonds, and hazelnuts inside, and some of the confections you can look forward to include a Milk Chocolate Almond Cluster, Dark Orange Marzipan and Milk Chocolate Coconut Roche. Fortnum & Mason offers international shipping, but just be sure to place your order a little early, as the brand is based in London.

Includes: Milk chocolate almond cluster, dark orange marzipan, milk chocolate coconut roche (230 grams)

La Maison du Chocolat Coffret Maison Dark Chocolate 24-Piece Box

Coffret Maison Dark Chocolate 24 pieces

LA Maison Du Chocolat

Higher in cacao content, dark chocolate is complex, with roasty-toasty coffee flavors that are often drowned out in milk chocolate. The Parisian chocolatiers at La Maison du Chocolat highlight dark chocolate with this assortment: two pieces each of a dozen different pralines and ganache–filled truffles. Flavors include intense 100-percent-cacao chocolate, Ethiopian coffee beans, lemon cream, passionfruit, hazelnut, and more. The Coffret Maison box is also available in sizes up to 84 pieces, which add a couple of extra flavors.

Includes:
24 total chocolates in 12 varieties

Savannah’s Candy Kitchen Chocolate Turtle Gopher Assortment

Chocolate Pecan Turtle Gophers | Savannah's Candy Kitchen | Gourmet Chocolate, Hand-made Caramel, & Georgia Pecans (Assorted, 24)

Amazon

It's hard to conceive of a better treat than pecans and caramel dipped in chocolate, and Southern shop Savannah's Candy Kitchen makes one of our favorite versions of the chocolate turtle. It's an enormous confection—weighing in at more than an ounce—that the company calls a turtle gopher.

For more than 40 years, Savannah's Candy Kitchen has been making turtles, pralines, and other favorites from its shop in the eponymous Georgia city, and you can get its signature red-and-white-striped gift box shipped nationwide. This sampler includes eight each of milk-, dark-, and white-chocolate-topped turtle gophers, but lots of other sizes and combinations are available.

Includes: 24 total turtles in 3 varieties

François Pralus Chocolatier Pistachio Infernal Bar

Francois Pralus Barre Infernale Pistache

Amazon

First created in 2005, the Infernal Bar gets its name because it is devilishly delicious. The chocolate-coated pistachio praline was devised by François Pralus, who's been in the chocolate business since birth: His parents first opened the family patisserie outside of Lyon, France, in 1948. The bar's exquisitely smooth pistachio praline has whole pistachios folded in—it’s easy to imagine, but difficult to find anywhere except in this bar. That's then coated with 75-percent-cacao dark chocolate made from beans grown on a Pralus-owned farm in Madagascar. It's many steps above your standard candy bar.

Size:
160 grams (about 5.6 ounces)

What to Look for in Gourmet Chocolates

Ingredients

The chocolate itself is the most important part of any bar, truffle, or bonbon, and you can generally identify high-quality chocolate by a short ingredients list. If you see a lot of additives or preservatives, it's not "gourmet" chocolate. Lots of chocolatiers call themselves "handmade" and "bean-to-bar," but look for concrete signs that a maker cares about where its chocolate comes from, like listing the cacao percentage and country/region of origin, along with organic, fair-trade, and environmental certifications. The same applies to flavors, fillings, and anything else that isn't chocolate: The fewer ingredients and the more information given about where they come from, the better.

Artistry and Appearance

We eat with our eyes first, and in the world of gourmet chocolate, this concept is taken seriously. Especially if you're giving chocolate as a gift, a luxe ribbon-tied box full of colorful pieces in a variety of shapes will be more appealing than a plastic tray of identical squares. The appearance of the chocolate itself can also tell you a lot about its quality. Chocolate should have a smooth, shiny surface; any cloudy discoloration is a sign of "bloom," which means the chocolate was stored improperly. (Bloomed chocolate is generally still safe to eat, but the taste won't be at its peak.)

Packaging and Shipping

Chocolate is not the most perishable food in the world, but freshness is still important—especially for high-end artisanal chocolate and if fillings and toppings contain fresh fruit or fresh dairy. Many gourmet chocolates must be sent overnight or via expedited shipping, which increases cost. Chocolate bars and bonbons are fragile and prone to cracking, but online retailers that ship chocolate around the country generally have packaging equipped to protect the delicate goodies inside, and breakage doesn't seem to be a very common problem with any of the brands featured above.

One other thing to keep in mind is that chocolates containing alcohol, like whiskey- or liqueur-filled cordials, might not be shippable to every state. The rules vary based on the exact alcohol content, where it's going, and where it's coming from, so you'll have to check the chocolate you're interested in individually.

FAQs

What is gourmet chocolate? 

There's no specific definition for "gourmet," but high-end chocolate can be high-end in many different ways. It's a lot like coffee: There are many different types of beans grown in many places around the world, which can be processed, roasted, and prepared in various different ways. What that comes down to is that there's a dizzying array of chocolates out there. And that doesn't even include all the ways all those types of chocolate can be turned into truffles and other candies or poured over fruits and nuts. Really, what it comes down to is attention to ingredients: Gourmet chocolate uses better, more special versions of all of them, and it's often made in smaller batches by smaller groups of people—sometimes by the head chocolatier themself.

What is dark chocolate? 

Dark chocolate has three main ingredients: ground-roasted cocoa beans, cocoa butter (which is the fat pressed from cocoa beans), and sugar. Dark chocolate is often classified by the percentage of cacao, which refers to the proportion of ingredients made up of cocoa beans and butter. A 100-percent-cacao chocolate has only cocoa beans and butter, with no sugar at all. The higher the percentage, the more bitter and intense the chocolate flavor is.

What is milk chocolate?

Like dark chocolate, milk chocolate includes cocoa beans, cocoa butter, and sugar, along with (surprise!) milk. The added dairy gives the chocolate a velvety texture, creamy taste, and lighter color, though the cacao percentage tends to be lower than dark chocolate for a less intensely chocolaty flavor.

What is white chocolate?

White chocolate contains cocoa butter and sugar, but it doesn't have any ground cocoa beans, the source of dark and milk chocolate's reddish-brown color. (White chocolate usually also includes milk, though dairy-free versions exist.) It's sweet and has a rich texture, with a mild flavor that pairs with all sorts of ingredients. Because of its high-fat content, white chocolate also melts beautifully, making it good for dipping and coating.

How long does chocolate last? 

Gourmet chocolate always tastes best eaten as soon as possible. That said, if packaged properly, a bar of plain chocolate can last for a year or more at room temperature. However, its flavor will fade over time, especially with exposure to air and light.

The rules are different with chocolate candies, especially truffles filled with cream-based ganache. These will generally last two or three weeks at room temperature or a few months in the fridge—though refrigeration negatively affects chocolate's flavor. (These are general guidelines; read the storage instructions for anything you buy to make sure it doesn't have special rules.)

Why Trust The Spruce Eats?

Karen Resta is a writer specializing in food culture and history, cooking, pastries, and restaurants. She's also a former pastry chef and has traveled to Paris, Budapest, and Kyiv, Ukraine, during their Fashion Weeks as a photographer and writer, always finding the best authentic pastries along the way. She now spends her free time baking at home and recommends quality ingredients within your given budget.

Allison Wignall, who updated this roundup, is a writer who focuses on food and travel. During her globetrotting, she has tasted some of the sweetest confections, from macarons in Paris to fresh gourmet chocolates in Ecuador. Her work has been featured in publications including, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Southern Living.

The Spruce Eats commerce writer Jason Horn further updated this story. He's spent more than 15 years writing about food and drinks, and every time he thinks he's found a favorite chocolate, he tastes one he likes better,

Additional reporting by
Allison Wignall
Allison Wignall The Spruce Eats

Allison Wignall is a staff writer for The Spruce Eats who focuses on product reviews. She has also contributed to publications such as Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Southern Living.

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