14 Of The Most Expensive Kinds Of Chocolate Available

The quality and presentation of chocolate along with the rarity of the cacao beans used can make the chocolate terribly cheap or super expensive. Chocolate companies have gone as far as to partner with jewelry companies. They've festooned chocolates with edible gold to create uber-expensive, limited-edition chocolates with astounding price tags, such as "Le Chocolate Box." This was a $1.5 million extravaganza from Lake Forest Confections and Simon Jewelers that had diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire jewelry tucked among several boxes of chocolates. Don't forget the time that restaurant Serendipity 3 teamed with Euphoria New York to create "Frrrozen Haute Chocolate," which cost a whopping $25,000 for a blend of cocoa mixed with edible gold — 23-karat gold — and a luxury chocolate truffle. If you need a moment to catch your breath after seeing those prices, you're not alone.

Luckily, other options exist for those who'd like to buy very nice chocolates but who are on a relatively smaller budget. The craftsmanship and quality of the chocolate do play roles in the price, but the costs are a little less eye-popping. Be aware that these more expensive chocolates can go in and out of stock without warning. Plus, given that cacao crops are under threat from everything from climate change to supply issues — cacao prices have tripled over the past year — chocolate prices can rise as well. That being said, here's a look at 14 of the most expensive kinds of chocolate available.

Why wait to find out the current winner? Two of the most expensive chocolates available come from DeLafée of Switzerland, and they both follow the formula of pairing chocolate with something precious. In these cases, each box contains an antique gold Swiss Vreneli 10 Francs coin from the Swiss central bank, minted between 1911 and 1922. The more-expensive box has eight chocolates wrapped in a layer of edible, 24-karat gold, while the less-expensive box has only two chocolates.

The coin is rather small, but gold prices have soared over the years. The scrap value alone of the coin (meaning the price of the gold itself, regardless of age or collectable value) could easily cover at least half the money you spent on the chocolates, if not more. The one catch is that the boxes with the coins can be delivered only in Switzerland and not overseas, so if you want one of these bad boys, you'll have to travel there to get it. If you're not up for traveling, you can still get the chocolates delivered, just without the coin.

In second place is a nearly $500 offering from Debauve & Gallais that comes in four varieties. The main product is a 252-piece chocolate assortment with different flavors and delicious additions, including coconut cream, ginger, hazelnuts, and chestnut honey. The box is available in dark, milk, dark and milk, and praliné (a mix of nuts, sugar, and cocoa butter).

These aren't Debauve & Gallais' first luxury products. Back in 2021, the company produced a series of "book" chocolates, which were nestled in a box shaped like a large book. One of these was the Royal Book Chocolate Selection, a 151-piece collection made for the company's anniversary. This cost over $2,000 and included a book about the company's history; perfect for spending a relaxing afternoon eating delectable chocolates while reading. Those who couldn't or wouldn't shell out $2,000 could spend less than $300 on a smaller collection of chocolates in a smaller book-shaped box lined with gold leaf.

To'ak Chocolate is next on the list with a slightly cheaper option, but keep in mind that this company uses the rarest chocolate in the world to make its products. This is Nacional cacao, an Ecuadorian variety that was once thought to be extinct until the founders of To'ak located some old-growth trees in a valley. The founders actually had the trees put through DNA tests to verify the variety, and then partnered with farmers in that valley to grow the cacao for the company. Nacional cacao is so expensive that a mere bar of chocolate from To'ak can cost upwards of $300, and a previous bar it sold cost more than $600.

To'ak sells different forms of the chocolate and creates series or collections. One series is the Art Masters series, where the chocolates have a print from an Ecuadorian artist. The Art Masters Series Enriquestuardo costs $490 and contains a box of chocolate with a print from the artist Enriquestuardo made specially for the series; his print contains gold leaf. To'ak says the chocolate has a flavor profile that mixes plum, cashew, caramel, and honey.

If you prefer to bake with something expensive, family-owned Chocolat Michel Cluizel has a line of baking chocolates that reach almost $400 per 3-kilogram bag. These bags of chocolate chips come in a range of milk and dark percentages, from 45% milk to 85% dark. People who've tried luxury chocolate brands treat Cluizel's chocolates as among the finest, with its milk chocolate receiving accolades.

The company started as a conventional bon-bon manufacturer using couverture chocolate, which is a type of high-quality baking chocolate with additional cocoa butter. However, the founders soon moved away from the use of semi-prepared ingredients and into the bean-to-bar industry. "Bean to bar" means making chocolate starting with cacao beans themselves, rather than buying semi-processed cocoa butter and baking chocolate and using those to make candies. The company is also known for a very rich praline spread made with ripe hazelnuts; these have a higher fat content that contributes to the spread's texture.

Creamy chocolate ganache is nice, but creamy chocolate ganache decorated with art and made with several different flavors is very nice. If that's what you want, MarieBelle New York has you covered for $319. You'll get a box with 100 pieces of ganache that come in 22 flavors. Be aware that when you order this product, the art can vary. However, the flavors don't, and you'll get to try ganache in flavors ranging from basic milk chocolate and vanilla to passionfruit and rose petal. Some of the ganache flavors contain alcohol, such as brandy or vodka, too.

The company is known for its choice of flavors, and that aforementioned passionfruit is among the most popular. The founder, Maribel Lieberman, is a designer and started out selling chocolates made in France along with fashionable eyeglasses. She had a goal, however, to create her own brand of chocolates and was later able to open her own factory in Brooklyn.

When you can't decide between chocolates, cookies, and dried fruit and nuts, turn to Richart Chocolates for an assortment that contains all three categories. The Signature chocolate and macaron gift basket has six different types of chocolate in different forms, including some with a special alcohol-free liquid center. A box of French macarons, a bag of chocolate-covered nuts, and another bag of dried fruit and nuts round out the collection.

The Signature gift basket will run you $314, and the company has other items that don't cost as much, but many are still in the three-figure range. Richart has won multiple awards for its chocolate, and that quality and craftsmanship show in the prices. Several of the company's products cost just a hair under $200, and several hover around the $100 mark. These include smaller versions of its chocolate-and-macaron gift basket combination. Don't worry, though — if those prices still make you stop and stare, you can get smaller boxes of chocolates and macarons from the company for less.

Teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland started as a small-town chocolate factory and grew into a worldwide favorite. The company notes that its chocolates are made fresh each week by hand, and these include praliné chocolates. Praliné chocolate is not the same as the chewy pecan pralines you find in the United States. As previously mentioned, praliné chocolates are made from a combination of nuts — mainly hazelnuts and almonds — that have been ground up and mixed with sugar. The whole mass is caramelized and then often ground into paste. Some chocolates contain praliné paste that's covered with chocolate, while other confections mix the chocolate and the paste together.

Teuscher offers a gift box of pralinés in different sizes. If you go for the largest, at 1,200 grams (or 1.2 kilograms), you'll pay around $271, depending on the exchange rate at the time you make your purchase if you order online. Teuscher does have a physical location in New York City, though, so if you're in the area, you can get your chocolate pralinés without the wait for shipping.

If you just want a hunk of chocolate — none of this multi-piece-assortment stuff for you — then you want the La Madeline au Truffe from House of Knipschildt. This is a large chocolate truffle that's often called among the most expensive in the world because it reportedly costs $25 per gram. The confection has a piece of Périgord truffle at the center; this truffle is renowned for its fragrance and is fairly rare, found only in parts of France. It's surrounded by a ganache layer that includes truffle oil, another layer of 70% dark chocolate (from Valrhona, itself a luxury brand), and then a layer of cocoa powder. You get this concoction in a box filled with sugar pearls — and you have to eat it fast, as the company says it has a shelf life of only one week. If you're ordering it from afar, be prepared to pay for next-day shipping once the company is done making the chocolate.

While the La Madeline au Truffe contains a piece of actual truffle mushroom, many chocolate truffles do not. They're called truffles because their often bumpy appearance looks similar to the fungi truffles dug up by special truffle-hunting pig or dog. Those chocolate truffles can be much more affordable, but the inclusion of the Périgord truffle here helps make this one of the pricier products you can find.

For those who want something varied but a little more alcohol-forward, Pierre Marcolini has the Celebration champagne box, which includes not only chocolates and pieces of ganache, but also cocoa-covered almonds, a small jar of hazelnut spread, champagne truffles, and a small bottle of Louis Roederer Collection champagne. One feature in the box, called Malline Découverte, is an assortment of flavored chocolates in several fruit and nut flavors. The whole thing runs approximately $238.

Champagne and chocolate is a sumptuous combination itself, but the two can be combined into chocolate truffles. These actually aren't the easiest to make as the champagne has to be added in just the right amounts to produce a proper truffle. Go overboard when adding the champagne, and the truffle won't look that great. It also helps if the champagne is on the sweeter side; the flavors will still be in contrast, but the sweetness in the champagne helps that contrast be interesting in a good way. Less-sweet champagne could produce a jarring contrast instead.

When you want your luxury chocolate to be a little quirky, you may want to look at Vosges Haut-Chocolat. This company is known for doing things like combining chocolate with crystals and affirmation cards, and combining flavors like chocolate and cheese. The company's gift sets can run as high as $200, for which you'll get chocolates, tea, and bath salts. The chocolates contain lavender, chamomile, matcha, and tulsi, and the gift set has a story book and what the company calls "guided dream rituals."

Vosges Haut-Chocolat had a rough time during the pandemic. The company apparently had much of its property up for auction, according to a press release from 2023. Anecdotes online say the company went through layoffs and then a management change that reportedly helped everything improve. The company's website is active with products for sale, so hopefully all is well with one of the more creative chocolatiers out there.

The Amedei Viaggio set is the first on the list to come in under $200, at least at current exchange rates. The set comes in a beechwood box and contains 12 types of chocolate that use beans from different regions and with different amounts of cacao. (You get multiples of each chocolate, by the way.) There's even one selection that's 100% cocoa mass, and dark chocolate outnumbers milk and white chocolate.

The company is known for its bean-to-bar confections and is one of the more prominent chocolate makers in what's been nicknamed "Chocolate Valley" near Pisa, Italy. Even though it was sold to another company in the 2010s, it continues to follow the older processes that the founders preferred to use. Part of the process is called conching, in which the chocolate is continuously mixed to produce a smoother texture. Amedei uses a slower conching process that, according to the company, produces a smoother product.

Japanese chocolate is absolutely delicious and often comes in flavors you don't see much in the United States, such as strawberry choco and green tea. One brand, ROYCE' (with that apostrophe), is considered one of the best chocolates worldwide; some who've tried it even claim that its Nama chocolate is the only Japanese chocolate that's better than European chocolate. The brand as a whole regularly shows up in lists of top chocolate companies in Japan.

Nama chocolate is a type of ganache that uses very fresh cream and that is covered with cocoa powder on top. ROYCE' sells the Prestige Nama Chocolate Collection that varies the flavor of the ganache, some with alcohol and others without any alcohol. The Prestige collection includes 11 different types of ganache and costs $188.88. The collection does have to be kept cool, and refrigeration is necessary. It's available online only.

Chocolat Michel Cluizel makes a second appearance on the list with a collection of 30 truffles — just chocolate, no fungi — made with chocolate from the Mangaro Plantation in Madagascar. The truffles are covered in cocoa powder and do not contain any soy, preservatives, or added flavors. The ingredients limit any flavoring to cocoa and vanilla.

The truffles owe their high price to the specialty cacao. Mangaro used to be a mango plantation, and the cacao beans that grow there now have taken on a mango-like fragrance. Beans are harvested by hand and then sent to Cluizel; there are no processing steps between harvesting and shipping. The cacao is used in both dark and milk chocolate, and the finished products are supposed to have flavor notes reminiscent of gingerbread and fruit. Shipping the finished truffles is weather-dependent — if you order them when the weather is warmer or if you live farther away from the company's factory, the company says you'll need to choose faster shipping to avoid having the chocolates melt.

The final entry is from Godiva, the luxury brand that used to be available in mall stores. For $150, you can get a 72-piece gift set of assorted chocolates with fillings that include almond praliné, butterscotch caramel, cherry, raspberry, and coffee. This is a classic collection of flavors that should please anyone, and it comes in a gold-colored box topped with a gold ribbon.

Godiva went through a major change during the pandemic. A new CEO joined the company, closed the mall stores, and increased distribution of Godiva chocolates to other retail outlets. That change also meant revamping the online availability of the chocolates, and now you can order these scrumptious chocolates online. You do have to be careful regarding picking up the box if you have it delivered in hot weather — the company does what it can to ensure the chocolates stay safe, but you'll want to be sure you don't let them sit out for long. If you're paying $150 for chocolate, you want it to be intact when you open the box to sample the goods.