Best Chocolate Shops In Boston

L.A. Burdick Chocolate Shop and Café in Harvard Square has dozens of chocolate choices. Some of the more famous ones are the milk, dark and white chocolate mice – complete with tails. But if that's not what you're looking for, there are plenty of hand-cut and shaped chocolates. A pound will get you about 70 pieces. While there you may want to consider getting a cup of heavenly hot chocolate.

Beacon Hill Chocolates has been finding chocolates from all over the world and bringing them to Boston for the past 15 years. Paula Barth says she's especially interested in special truffle collections, the search for ingredients and how flavors are blended. There are keepsake boxes in addition to assortment boxes and truffles.

Not a hotel at all, but filled with treats that will make your dreams sweet. The Newbury Street store is Hotel Chocolat's flagship location. The company is now growing its own cocoa at the historical plantation, Rabot Estate, in St. Lucia. If you want to learn more about chocolate, where it came from and the different varieties, consider ducking into Hotel Chocolat's tasting room.

Serenade's chocolates are made in-shop with "the finest ingredients" and a "devotion to a craft passed down through generations of European candy makers," according to the store's website. The shop has the traditional soft centers, nuts and caramels, but it also has piñata cakes. These festive treats look like cakes, but are really chocolate shells filled with small chocolates inside. Pinata cakes come complete with a mallet for smashing.

Lee Napoli worked as a bartender, manager, and caterer before moving into the world of chocolatier. While working as a pastry chef for several restaurants in the city, Napoli also started making truffles and sold them to a few stores. In 2007, she opened her own store and has been making and selling chocolates ever since. Some of the house favorites are dark chocolate with salted caramel, dark chocolate with sesame caramel, and the dark chocolate with chocolate ganache and candied ginger.