Patrice Chapon is, in my humble opinion, one of the best chocolatiers in Paris. I do, however, have some evidence to back up this assertion, even if it is only my personal experience. I am a notorious chocoholic and not a day goes by without a square (multiple squares) of chocolate. When I moved to Brussels I thought: “What better place to begin my quest to find the best chocolate?” As I was determined to do things properly and give each place a fair chance, I started with Leonidas and made my way up to Pierre Marcolini.

When I returned to Paris, I somehow didn’t feel fully satisfied that I had reached my goal (sorry Pierre!) And so the journey continued… After eating copious amounts of chocolate (which, as you can imagine, was an extremely trying task), I finally managed to establish a shortlist: La Mère de Famille, Jean-Paul Hévin, Alain Ducasse… and Patrice Chapon.

What makes Chapon different from the others is the chocolate mousse bar. Patrice Chapon drew inspiration for this concept from his love for ice cream: he wanted to recreate the experience of picking ice cream flavours as a child… but with chocolate mousse instead! He is also the only chocolatier in France to have his own roasting workshop where he roasts his beans using restored machines from last century.

Bonus: you can leave with a tub of mousse and the recipe to recreate it, as it is printed on their bag!