Giving chocolate for Valentine’s Day? Check out these 11 chocolatiers

It’s time to treat yourself to a box of chocolates. But not every box of bonbons or truffles is worth your time or money. Although it’s a common commodity, exceptional chocolate doesn’t just taste better, it’s better for growers, those who harvest the pods, the roasters, all of the producers, confectioners and the planet.

Over the past year, I’ve ordered dozens of boxes of chocolates from makers primarily in the United States. All of them came with an origin story, the name and location of the farm where the cacao was grown, or the brand of sustainable and fair-trade chocolate used to make the candies and bonbons tucked into the decorative box. Some were vegan, most made use of local ingredients and all of them demonstrated a mastery of the unique and time-consuming skill of making molded or enrobed chocolates. These chocolates are significantly more expensive than a Hershey bar, which retails for less than a dollar, but for many, many reasons, if you want to treat yourself, they are worth the cost.

The list below doesn’t cover them all, but it’s a start. If you have a favorite local chocolate shop, a place you trust, start there. If you’re looking to try something new, or local, find a list of some of the country’s finest chocolate-makers below. They’re all offering boxes of chocolates and nationwide reach. Note: Although many of these offer nationwide shipping, these prices don’t include shipping.

Socola Chocolatier: Co-founder Wendy Lieu named her shop Socola after the Vietnamese word for chocolate. It was a way to honor her parents, who fled Vietnam in the early 1980s. Socola’s flavors — like black sesame, Vietnamese coffee, guava and vanilla passion fruit — sparkle, and her enrobed bonbons are some of the most delicate around. The San Francisco shop also makes a variety of confections, a special Lunar New Year box and delicate chocolate mooncakes. Plus, there’s a local connection: Lieu and her sister Susan Lieu, natives of Santa Rosa, got their start selling their chocolates at the Santa Rosa Downtown Market 20 years ago. (From $14.95 for a box of 12; 535 Folsom St., San Francisco, socolachocolates.com)

Fleur Sauvage Chocolates: Robert Nieto and his wife, Tara, have been selling their pretty, artisan Fleur Sauvage chocolates at local farmers markets for the last three years, but in December, they opened their own chocolate shop in Windsor. Nieto already had made a name for himself in the food world, as a competitor on the Food Network’s “Holiday Wars,” “Cookie Wars” and “Beat Bobby Flay” over the last few years. They ship boxes of bon bons, too. (From $12 for a box of four; 370 Windsor River Road, fleursauvagechocolates.com)

Bert’s Desserts: Bert Smith was already known among her friends and family for making tasty sweets like peanut butter cups when she opened her Petaluma shop in 2004. Since then, she’s competed with her desserts in more than a dozen Sonoma County Harvest Fairs, winning titles for Overall Dessert Winner and Best of Show Individual Dessert. For Valentine’s Day, she’s making all sorts of heart-themed bonbons, sold individually all the way up to a platter-full of sweetness such as Chocolate Covered Oreo Cookies, Peanut Butter Cups and Cream Truffles. (Valentine’s Day platters at $20, $30 and $40; 501 Lakeville St., Suite B, Petaluma, bit.ly/3AZZ85t)

Kokak Chocolates: Founder and head chocolatier Carol Gancia opened her San Francisco shop in June 2020. After growing up in the Philippines, she immigrated to the United States with a plan to become a master chocolatier. Gancia studied under chocolatier Melissa Coppel and pastry chef Stacy Radin at the International Culinary Center in California before striking out on her own. Flavors include single-origin ganaches, as well as infusions such as kalamansi, banana caramel and lemongrass. There’s a line of vegan bonbons as well. (From 19.95 for a box of five; kokakchocolates.com)

River-Sea Chocolates: Unique among chocolate makers is this Virginia-based shop that sells chocolate bars and bonbons it makes, bean-to-bar, from cacao pods that grow wild in Brazil. The fruit is picked by the Saraca people, who have been tending to native cacao for centuries. Grown and harvested this way, these cacao trees help maintain a healthy ecosystem and “offer an ecologically friendly monetary incentive for the Amazonian inhabitants to keep the forest they live in protected from logging, cattle ranching, and slash-and-burn agriculture,” according to co-owner Krissee D'Aguiar. River-Sea also imports chocolate from Colombia, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic by sailboat. Find vegan chocolates as well as filled and infused bonbons in flavors like peanut butter-dark chocolate, butterfly pea flower, raspberry and vanilla bourbon. (From $14.99 for a box of five; riverseachocolates.com)

Melissa Coppel Chocolatier: With chocolate shells nearly as thin as a flower petal, these delicate, molded and enrobed bonbons are uniquely sensational. Made in Las Vegas, where Coppel also teaches chocolate-making classes, the only thing more impressive than how they look is how they taste. Coppel’s signature flavors are especially complex and include yogurt, litchi, almond, raspberry and rose; jasmine, strawberry and poppy seeds; honey and tahini; and roasted caramel apple, pecan and croissant flakes. ($40 for a box of 12 bonbons; melissacoppel.com)

Chocolate Secrets: Pam G. Eudaric and Rocio Estrada run this Dallas-based chocolate business. There’s a lot to choose from, but don’t miss the molded and very colorful hand-painted bonbons in flavors including bananas foster, ancho chile, brown butter caramel and strawberry balsamic. (From $26 for nine pieces; mychocolatesecrets.com)

Midunu: Selassie Atadika started her chocolate business in 2014 to celebrate Africa’s culinary heritage, bringing awareness to ingredients affected by deforestation, such as prekese or tetrapleura tetraptera, a flowering pea pod that has a lightly sweet-tart flavor. The chocolates are made in Accra, Ghana, by a team of female chocolatiers; they’re then shipped to a fulfillment center in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Be sure to try the Almaz, a bonbon filled with milk chocolate ganache infused with berbere spice, and the Thando, a dark chocolate shell filled with rooibos tea-infused white chocolate. ($24 for six pieces or $42 for 12; us.midunuchocolates.com)

Monsoon Chocolate: In Tucson, Arizona, owner and chocolate-maker Adam Krantz imports cacao from Peru, Ecuador and India to make his own chocolate, which gets formed into bars and delicate bonbons in bold, seasonal and local flavors: chiltepin, cocoa nib horchata, black pepper rose, chile mango, Sonoran sea salt and grapefruit-fennel pollen are some of the shop’s standbys. There are vegan varieties, too. (From $14 for a box of four; monsoonchocolate.com)

Bonbonbon: Alexandra Clark is the brains behind this Detroit-based shop, which sells the unique tiny rectangular open-faced chocolates in fun flavors like funfetti cake, coffee and doughnuts, lemon bar and sticky “bon.” (Priced individually at $3.50; build a box of any size; bonbonbon.com)

Bliss Chocolatier: The mother-daughter team of Jessica Washburn and Pat Jarstad run this Kansas City, Missouri, operation. Standouts include the Sea Turtle, a blue milk chocolate shell filled with salted caramel and pecan praline; vegan raspberry, with a supremely fruity filling; and key lime cheesecake, with layers of sweet lime, creamy cheesecake and crunchy graham cracker. ($25 for a box of nine; $48 for a box of 18; blisschocolatier.com)

In case a box of chocolates feels like too much of a commitment, consider a bag of chocolate marshmallows from Nikki Darling Confections in Chicago, orange blossom hot cocoa mix from Madhu Chocolate in Austin, a tin of pralines from Laura’s Candies in New Orleans or a box of enrobed toffee from Valerie Confections in Los Angeles.

Press Democrat staff contributed to this story.