The 13 best chocolate shops in NYC

 One of the oldest chocolate and confectionery shops in the city, Aigner is an NYC classic dating back to 1930. Its present confections, prepared in part with antique equipment, include all manner of truffles, bark, bars, cordials, nut clusters and tons of chocolate-covered creations like cakes, cookies and fruit. The inviting, family-owned shop is roomy enough to browse and also sells coffee, tea, espresso drinks and hot chocolate. 

If a pastry chef calls himself “Mr. Chocolate,” it sets pretty high expectations, but the renowned French-raised toque earns his moniker. Though he’s garnered attention for his chocolate-chip cookies and “wicked” spiced hot chocolate, sample his signature truffles to taste the full range of his craft. Other goodies include chocolate-enrobed graham crackers, milk-chocolate covered pretzels and Cheerios, as well as chocolate-covered espresso beans.

This overflowing slip of a space in a darling sliver of towering midtown has been family owned and operated since 1990. In addition to its rows and rows of chocolates and cookie varieties, Myzel’s also carries more than 100 types of European licorice. It’s a particularly terrific place to pick up a big, red, heart-shaped candy box around Valentine’s Day!

Whimsical designs and colorful abstract patterns adorn Maribel Lieberman’s ganache squares. A "New York" chocolate caramel box, for example, is emblazoned with local landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge. If you prefer to keep things simple, opt for a box of the cocoa-powder-dusted truffles or the haystack-shaped clusters, which comprise piles of crushed French croquette cookies and dark, milk or white chocolate. Do your best to nab one of the café tables and sip hot chocolate with seasonal fruit crêpes.

Best known for its petite chocolate penguins and other creatures, this family-owned, New Hampshire–based brand debuted in New York all the way back in 1987 with a shop and café. Assorted pastries (tea cakes and tarts by the slice) share space in cases with pâtes de fruits, marzipan, dipped caramels and assorted truffles. Ponder the options over a cup of dark, white or milk hot chocolate.

A neighborhood favorite since 1943, Mondel Chocolates is also known far beyond the Upper West Side. The sweet shop was a favorite of film legend Katharine Hepburn, who called the wares “the best in the world.” Truffles and creams line its glass cases, along with cordial cherries and chocolate-covered fruit and nuts. 

The Bryant Park branch of this Japanese chocolatier—established in Tokyo in 1983—offers items like chocolate-covered potato chips, rum-raisin bars and nama truffles. Green tea lovers will swoon over the brand's matcha varieties, from flaky wafers to coconut cookies to matcha-powdered almonds. 

Chocolatier Daniel Sklaar champions low-heat cooking methods and raw ingredients to preserve cacao’s form and purported antioxidants. At the Fine & Raw factory in East Williamsburg — which has a chocolate-inspired cafe and gift shop that offers immersive views of the brand's treat-making machinery in action — expect bonbons and bars, the latter occasionally enlivened by mesquite, sea salt or coconut. 

Former Per Se chocolatier Susanna Yoon fills bonbons with praline, passion fruit and pistachio marzipan, and crafts yuzu-, matcha- and togarashi-pepper–infused confections like petite cakes, caramels and nougat at this pint-size candy shop.

Launched in France in 1977, this international brand offers ganaches that pop with fruit (lemon, raspberry), herbs (fennel, mint) and liqueurs (kirsch, rum). Boulangerie items—decadent éclairs and macarons—are just as tempting. 

Choose from a wide variety of chocolates at this Belgian brand’s Madison Avenue flagship. The "astrid," made since 1937, encases the company’s signature gianduja in a light sugar glaze, while another classic—the "plaisir"—fills a nougatine candy with hazelnut ganache and wraps it in milk chocolate.

Unroasted cocoa beans are stone-ground at this bean-to-bar Red Hook factory, where chocolate slabs are flecked with Himalayan pink sea salt, laced with creamy oat milk and spiked with cask-aged bourbon.

Beautifully glossy chocolates served in fresh cocoa pods are already a hallmark of a meal at his eponymous Michelin-starred dining room, and acclaimed Alsatian chef Gabriel Kreuther also has a shop specifically devoted to the stuff. Helmed by pastry chef Marc Aumont, the 15-seat confectionery showcases freshly made chocolates available in flavors like bananas Foster, salted butter caramel, and peanut butter with cassis and pretzel crunch.