The San Francisco chocolate lover's shortlist

Here are my picks for the best chocolate places in the city:

• Chocolate tablets: Fog City News, an impressive lineup tended by the knowledgeable owner, Adam Smith.
• Honorable mention: Chocolat (2801 Leavenworth, in The Cannery, 415-674-8852). You wouldn't expect a decent chocolate shop in the lurid wasteland that is Fisherman's Wharf. You would be wrong, however. This store has the requisite stands of insipid Ghirardelli and Jelly Belly confections for the tourists, but also a decent selection from the likes of Michel Cluizel or Fran's
  Update (2006-11-24): the place apparently went out of business
• Chocolate bouchées: Cocoa Bella. This shop is a chocolate integrator: it collects chocolates from small chocolatiers across the world and brings them under a single roof. They also make hot chocolate.
• Honorable mention: Michael Recchiuti makes scrumptious confections, and his hazelnut praliné bar is to die for.
• Chocolate maker: Guittard. This fourth-generation family of chocolatiers, originally from France, have been supplying professionals like Recchiuti for a century and half. The best dessert I ever had in America was a Guittard chocolate and cherry cake at Eno in Atlanta, of all places. They now have a retail line of very high quality.
• Honorable mention: Scharffen-Berger. Everyone raves about their chocolates. While I love their natural cocoa powder, I have always had mixed feelings about their dark chocolate bars, and their milk chocolate seems like a half-hearted effort, too sweet and malty.
• Hot chocolate: Bittersweet on Fillmore has a good selection of hot chocolates, pastries and chocolate bars.
• Honorable mention: Blue Bottle Coffee, a tiny hole-in-the-wall place off Gough street near Hayes Valley, makes rich creamy hot chocolate from Sur del Lago dark chocolate.
• Chocolate pastries: Citizen Cake is a pastry chef's pastry shop. Wildly imaginative cakes (although you can get cut by the bleeding edge), a favorite among Opera or Symphony-goers. They also have a small satellite, Citizen Cupcake, on the top floor of the Virgin Megastore on Market and Stockton.
• Honorable mentions: Cafe Madeleine, a.k.a. Jil's Patisserie, formerly of Burlingame, now made in their Second Street shop (with two additional locations on California and O'Farrell). The Bay Bread boulangeries, specially those on Polk and Pine. Miette in the Ferry Building.

22:10 - (permalink) [Food, San Francisco]