The best chocolates you can get for Valentine' Day

The best gourmet Belgian chocolate box

Why you'll love it: Neuhaus has been making fine Belgian chocolates since 1857, and its pralines are among the best.

Back in 1857, Jean Neuhaus opened a pharmacy in Brussels, Belgium and decided to coat medicines with chocolate to help them go down better. By 1912, Neuhaus' son had created the praline, and in 1915, his wife designed the first box of Neuhaus chocolates. Fast forward to 2018, and Neuhaus chocolates are still considered among the very best. We've tasted Neuhaus chocolate at its shops in NYC, and it's delicious.

Neuhaus uses non-GMO ingredients to make its high-end chocolates, and this 25-piece box includes some of the very best milk, dark, and white chocolates the chocolatier has to offer. The box is filled with pralinés, ganaches, caramels, and more so there's something for everyone. Best of all, you can order this box with two-day shipping if you're in a rush.

If Amazon runs out, 1-800-Flowers has a 25-piece box filled with milk, dark, and white pralinés, ganaches, and caramels.

The best French gourmet chocolate box

Why you'll love it: Michel Cluizel's chocolates are crafted from sustainably grown cocoa beans and they taste delicious.

For three generations, Michel Cluizel has been making gourmet chocolates in France. The family-owned company uses sustainably grown cocoa beans to make its chocolates from scratch. Cluizel works with the farmers directly to ferment the beans before taking them off to France or New Jersey for roasting and chocolate making.

If you prefer, you can also opt for Cluizel's solid chocolate bars, which come very highly recommended. We've tasted Cluizel's chocolate in New York City, and it is delicious.

The best high-end gourmet French chocolate box

Why you'll love it: La Maison du Chocolat makes some of the finest chocolates you can buy with its rich pralines and flavored ganaches.

In 1977, Robert Linxe achieved his life-long dream of opening a gourmet chocolate shop in Paris, France. Now, La Maison du Chocolat has shops all around the world, and it's widely regarded as one of the best chocolatiers.

This chocolate box contains both milk and dark chocolates so you get a little bit of everything. It includes several different pralines and a number of flavored ganaches. If you choose rush delivery, you'll get it within four to five days, so order now if you want it to arrive on time.

We've tried La Maison du Chocolat's confections before, and they live up to their great reputation as one of the best chocolatiers.

The best exotic chocolate truffle box

Why you'll love it: Adventurous chocolate connoisseurs will love the Vosges Exotic Truffle Collection for its unique flavors.

The founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat Katrina Markoff believes that each piece of chocolate should be an adventure with a unique story. Her exotic truffles are unlike any others you'll find in our guide. The exotic truffle collection uses intriguing flavors that will make any foodie swoon.

The Oaxaca truffle, for example, uses guajillo and pasilla chilies with 75% cacao Tanzanian dark chocolate and pumpkin seeds, while the Naga truffle is filled with sweet Indian curry and coconut that's covered by 45% cacao deep milk chocolate. If you're getting a bit freaked out by the experimental flavors, have no fear — there are also chocolates with cherries, hazelnuts, and other more traditional ingredients inside.

We've visited Vosges' New York shop to try some of these wild truffles, and it was certainly a fun experience.

The truffles come in a stylish purple box and include a booklet that details the unique flavors in each truffle and the story behind their creation.

The best gourmet chocolate bars

Why you’ll love it: Fresh, clean, and antioxidant-rich, K+M’s olive oil-infused chocolate is a sheer delight.

Thomas Keller (The French Laundry) and Armando Manni (Manni Olive Oil) may have engineered the holiest of earthly matrimonies with their Dark Chocolate and Extra Virgin Olive Oil bar, which may at once be the healthiest and most decadent chocolate bar on the market.

The duo spent five years researching, crafting, and perfecting their take on chocolate. Making a bar involves direct-sourcing to a warehouse in Napa, CA, where the beans are carefully processed so as to preserve their finer antioxidant properties. Instead of cocoa butter, K+M uses Extra Virgin Olive Oil for even more antioxidant magic.

Okay, we’re not all that sure of how much all these antioxidants will do for your health, but Keller and Manni find them to be important for taste, and ultimately, this chocolate really just speaks for itself. — Owen Burke

The best chocolate covered strawberries

Why you'll love it: Shari's Berries dips delicious, sweet strawberries in rich Belgian chocolate and delivers them to your door, safely chilled with an ice pack.

Not everyone wants a box of fancy chocolates, so if your loved one is a bit more unorthodox in his or her chocolate choices, a nice box of chocolate covered strawberries from Shari's Berries is a great idea.

You can choose from many different berries, including ones dipped in Belgian chocolate or ones that are dipped in white, milk, and dark chocolate. The berries are hand-dipped to ensure that each one is evenly coated in the rich chocolate.

We received a box of chocolate-covered strawberries in the mail to give them a taste. The delivery arrived the day after it was placed in an insulated cardboard box that included an ice pack for good measure. The berries were fully chilled and the chocolate was unmelted.

Although it's not gourmet-level chocolate, these are still the chocolate covered strawberries we'd recommend to our friends and family.

The best affordable Swiss chocolate box

Why you'll love it: You don't have to spend a ton of money to get great chocolate, and Lindt is the ultimate proof of that with its delicious creations.

David Sprüngli-Schwarz and his son, Rudolf Sprüngli-Ammann, founded the Swiss chocolate company in 1845, and Lindt-Sprüngli has been making delicious affordable chocolate ever since. Personally, this is the chocolate I reach for every time I see it at the grocery store.

If you want a box of chocolates, we recommend the Swiss Luxury Collection with its European pralines made from milk, dark, and white chocolate. You get macchiato, carre de stracciatella, caramelita, and perle de cacao flavors in this box.

Those of you who prefer to give a sampler of solid chocolate bars will love the dark chocolate assortment box, which includes the following bars: 70% Cocoa, 85% Cocoa, A Touch of Sea Salt, Intense Orange, and Caramel with a Touch of Sea Salt.

Best Mexican chocolate bars

Why you’ll love it: Artisanally made and wrapped, Taza chocolate is stone-ground for a grainy, gritty, almost sandy feel.

Taza chocolate is a breakaway from your run-of-the-mill chocolate bar. The chocolate is round, for starters, and break into slices like a pizza, which is sort of different. The chocolate is also stone-ground, which offers a grittier, grainier feel than more heavily processed chocolate, and reminds you that what your eating came from something of the natural world.

This all has the potential to put off many chocolate lovers who want nothing but smooth, soft, milk-chocolaty goodness, but anyone willing to try out something different will likely find themselves pleasantly surprised.

The flavor options are a little limited, but still dazzling, but do include a coffee-infused bar which uses Counter Culture Coffee, and two different chili-bearing options for the pepper-obsessed chocolate fiend.

In all, they’re all good, and they all also make for excellent hot chocolate. You can check out Taza hot chocolate recipes here. — Owen Burke

The best affordable Belgian chocolate

Why you'll love it: Godiva makes Belgian chocolate that's affordable and deliciously smooth.

Godiva is perhaps one of the most well-known chocolate companies, given its 90-year history. The chocolatier got its start in 1926 in Brussels, Belgium, when Joseph Draps opened his first shop. Godiva now has more than 600 shops around the world and sells at many big-name stores.

You can get everything from chocolate-covered strawberries or pretzels to truffles, bars, and boxes of assorted chocolates. Flavors are traditional and the chocolate is rich and creamy, whether you want milk, dark, or white chocolates.

If you don't want to spend an arm and a leg on chocolate, Godiva is a great, affordable option. The majority of its chocolates cost between $8 and $50, with many falling in the $20 to $40 range. Most 4-piece boxes cost about $8, 6-piece boxes cost $17 to $20, 20-piece boxes cost about $30, and prices go up from there.

The best affordable chocolate bars

Why you’ll love it: Green & Black's chocolate is the affordable, organic, and sustainable option that ensures nothing’s lost in the way of quality or purity.

Green & Black sources its cocoa beans through Cocoa Life, a Global Ethical Standard-accredited company that's recognized as the leader of the cocoa industry working to end child labor and support farming communities. They’re also working against deforestation and wildlife poaching. Oh, and did we mention yet that they make really good chocolate?

This isn’t the frill of Jacques Torres or Vosges, but it is just as thrilling in its delivery of simple pleasures. The 85% Cacao Dark Chocolate Bar is heavenly for dark chocolate lovers.

Palates looking for something somewhat more adventurous might reach for the ginger or hazelnut and currant bar, but that’s about as eclectic a mix as you’ll find here. This is a chocolate lover’s chocolate, a thoroughly pedestrian array that makes no apologies for not dazzling us with wild infusions or hunks of cured pork.

Take this bar and love it for all that is plain and pure about it. No waxy preservatives, no artificial sweeteners, just the real, unabashed deal. — Owen Burke

The best chocolates you can get for Valentine' Day

Why you'll love it: Jacques Torres' chocolate boxes are fun and different, but not prohibitively exotic to the point where there's a chance that the recipient of these lovingly crafted boxes will turn their nose up at it.

Colorful and diverse, Jacques Torres’ gift boxes give a little taste of almost everything the chocolatier has to offer, which is to say a lot.

Fillings, coatings, and flavorings include cream, passionfruit, melon, raspberry, strawberry, pineapple, coconut, various citruses, teas, wines, spirits, gold leaf, and more — and that’s just in the small box alone).

Patterns bedazzle some chocolates and little flowers, nuts, and pieces of fruit adorn others, all contributing to an elegantly-arranged spread of delightful bite-sized morsels that taste as good and often better than they look.

We at Insider Picks were nearly in fisticuffs over the "Golden Espresso." — Owen Burke

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