The 15 Best Chocolate Brands You Will Ever Eat

Chocolate a beloved food by so many can be done right or wrong. This is subjective. However, if you want to know how it is done right, and you want to explore your chocolate palate. Then keep reading, we have a list of 15 of the best chocolate brands you will ever eat. 

The 15 Best Chocolate Brands You Will Ever Eat

OmNom Chocolate Reykjavík

OmNom is a small-batch, craft chocolate maker based in Reykjavík, Iceland. The company started as an experiment to see if the two friends could master how to make chocolate. From the start, they received positive tasting feedback. After receiving positive feedback, they set up a small chocolate-making lab inside a converted gas station and launched. OmNom's mission is to make the best chocolate possible using the highest quality of ingredients.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: OmNom Milk of Madagascar 45%

Amedei Tuscany

Amedei’s journey starts with foundress Cecilia Tessieri’s small artisanal laboratory and her commitment to excellence. A search that gradually developed through study, passion, and the rediscovery of ancient processing techniques. The raw cocoa pods selected by Amedei from plantations are harvested and sent directly to Tuscany, to be turned into true art pieces by their chocolatiers, who masterfully dose and hand-process a small number of selected ingredients.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Amedei Nocciole Chocolate Bar 32%

Akesson's

Akesson's Organic Chocolate is the first "Tree to Bar" chocolate maker. The Akesson family started with a single plantation in Madagascar. Today, Bertil Akesson has expanded the company's cacao network with plantations in Madagascar, Brazil, and Indonesia. If you tried craft chocolate or world-famous chocolatier chocolate, it is likely that it came from one of Akesson's cacao plantations. Akesson's Organic Chocolate bars have won a multitude of awards and is regarded as one of the best craft chocolate bars on the market.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Akesson's Madagascar Criollo 100%

Manoa Chocolate Hawaii

Manoa is a Hawaiian-based chocolate maker. Hawaii is the only state in the USA to grow cacao. The story of this maker began in the labs at the University of Hawaii in 2010 studying cacao as a crop for the state. Manoa started as college students with no money and bootstrapped their business with ingenuity and determination. 

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Manoa Goat Milk 69%

Goodio Chocolate

Founded in 2015, Goodio is a food pioneer with a big heart. The story started with a question: “What if there was a food brand you could trust?”. Goodio was created on the principles of sustainability, well-being, and transparency. It's a vision to bring Nordic-inspired flavors to a chocolate brand for the global consumer.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Goodio X Ivana Helsinki Candied Chamomile 49% (Limited Edition)

Marou Chocolate

Marou was one of the first bean to bar makers in Asia. When Vincent Mourou left his advertising career in San Francisco, he moved to Vietnam to find himself. This is when Vincent met Samuel Maruta, a banker from France living in Saigon with his wife and two kids. The two had nothing but a blender, an oven, cake tins, and Sam's kitchen. Samuel and Vincent continue to work with a tight network of small farmers who they buy the best quality beans from.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Marou Dong Nai 72%

Amano Chocolate

Amano Artisan Chocolate is a small-batch craft chocolate maker based in Orem, Utah. Amano is an award-winning maker, they make all their chocolate on vintage equipment. Their small batch process allows Amano to control and observe flavor development, making each batch of chocolate not only delicious but unique.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Amano Cardamom Black Pepper 60%

Taza Chocolate

Taza Chocolate makes stone-ground chocolate. Cacao is so complex in flavor that they want to let it shout loud and proud. That is why they do less to bring us more. They stone grind organic cacao beans into perfectly unrefined, minimally processed chocolate with bold flavor and texture, unlike anything you have ever tasted.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Taza Chocolate Mexicano Coffee 50%

Ranger Chocolate

Based on family recipes and named for founder George Domurot’s niece, a National Park Service Forest Ranger, Ranger Chocolate Company carefully handles each cacao bean to unlock nuance, regionality, and terroir-driven flavours in their chocolate.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Ranger Chulucanas, Peru 80% Medium

Cacaosuyo

“The best-kept secret of the Incas,” made at origin in Peru. Cacaosuyo are chocolate geeks’ elite rockstars. Minimally processed chocolate bars express each Peruvian cacao strain’s genetics in crystal clear surround sound. Their unrivaled attention to detail and direct trade practices are key in improving the lives of producers and preserving rare varietals that would otherwise be lost to more industrial, “productive” strains.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Cacaosuyo Cuzco 80%

Dick Taylor Chocolate

Adam Dick and Dustin Taylor have always loved crafting. With a background in woodworking and boat building, they have always worked with their hands. Craft is a guiding principle in their lives. After hearing about the craft chocolate movement in the late '00s, they saw similarities in woodworking and craft chocolate making. They became fascinated with the idea of the chocolate experience and in 2010 bought their first chocolate-making equipment. Their chocolate captures and highlights the subtle flavour nuances in the cacao they source from around the world, with the goal to make an enjoyable chocolate experience for us.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Dick Taylor Brown Butter with Nibs & Sea Salt 73%

 

Blanxart

It was in April of 1954 when the master chocolatier Francesc Agrás embarked on a long journey through the best patisseries and confectioneries in Europe. His passion for excellence in artisan confectionery was the seed that led to the founding of one of the most renowned Catalan chocolate factories: Bombons Blanxart. It all started in a modest workshop in the neighborhood of Les Corts (Barcelona) and feeding a dream: bringing the best cocoa beans from Ghana, Congo, and Guayaquil to chocolate.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Blanxart Nicaragua Eco-Organic 85%

Raaka

Raaka is devoted to making uncommonly delicious chocolate that captures the brighter, bolder, and fruitier side of cacao. They make every bar from scratch with unroasted cacao beans, sourced from growers they trust and admire. The unique flavour of their unroasted chocolate is part place, part process. They craft their bars in celebration of each cacao origin's unique character. Their chocolate making process values the community of growers, producers, and makers whose livelihoods depend on cacao and chocolate. All of their chocolate is made from scratch, bean-to-bar, in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Raaka Coconut Milk 60%

Ritual Chocolate

Ritual Chocolate produces small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate using classic European methods and premium cacao from select sources. Founded in 2010 by Robbie Stout and Anna Davies, their mission is to produce exceptional quality chocolate while celebrating the complexity of the cacao bean. At their small chocolate factory in Park City, Utah, they are involved with the entire chocolate-making process to ensure their values for the highest achievable quality are present every step of the way.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Ritual Bourbon Barrel Aged 75%

Original Beans

Since 2008, Original Beans has ventured into remote rainforests to source the world’s rarest cacao beans and transform the cultures of chocolate, food, and luxury. Original Beans founder, Philipp Kauffmann, represents the 7th generation in a family of recognized nature explorers and conservationists who coined the term “sustainability”. Philipp gave up his job at the United Nations in New York to grow Original Beans as a leading brand for a world in which we regenerate what we consume. For each bar purchased, Original Beans plants a tree with their initiative, One Bar One Tree.

Suggested Chocolate Bar: Original Beans Arhuaco Businchari 82%

To get started with craft chocolate, start with our Kekao Box. We search the world for the finest chocolate bars and bring them right to your doorstep monthly. From rich dark Peruvian chocolate bars to new start-up chocolate bars on the come up, you never know what you'll get inside the box! Each month we will curate 4 to 5 premium specialty crafted chocolate bars. 

If you want to just try a couple of bars, check out our online chocolate store.

If you have any questions regarding this blog, our Kekao Box, or premium specialty crafted chocolate bars, feel free to contact us! Keep up with us by subscribing to our newsletter or following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.