These Restaurants Have the Best Hot Chocolate in the U.S.

Double-Chocolate Hot Chocolate

At Baked in Brooklyn, cookbook authors Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito are known for playful cakes, like one based on the malt-and-chocolate flavor of Whoppers. The pair obsess over the quality of the ultrarich hot chocolate served at their bakery, which combines bittersweet and milk chocolate and is topped with homemade marshmallows.

Haut-Chocolat

To create thick, rich hot chocolate tableside, servers at the hotel’s Fireside Lounge muddle Valrhona chocolate with hot milk, then pour the mixture over a chocolate lattice that melts from the heat of the liquid. It’s topped with marshmallows and whipped cream and served with chocolate streusel.

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Homemade Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows

Combining the thicker weight of a Parisian chocolat chaud with the traditionally Mexican addition of cinnamon, chef-owner Annie Miler's homemade hot chocolate is a year-round favorite at her bakery-café. "I wanted something that was rich but not so overwhelmingly rich that you couldn't drink a cup of it," says Miler. F&W editors also love her creative griddled, grilled and stuffed open-face sandwiches.

City Bakery Hot Chocolate

Made from pure melted chocolate bars and topped with homemade marshmallows, this thick hot chocolate is F&W editor in chief Dana Cowin's favorite version in the country. During their Annual Hot Chocolate Festival in February, the café serves a different flavor every day of the month.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

At superstar chef Rick Bayless's Mexican takeout joint, the menu includes tortas (sandwiches), empanadas and churros, which can be dipped in hot chocolate. Baristas grind the cacao beans to order and foam the hot chocolate with a molinillo, a traditional wooden whisk.

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Azteca Aphrodisiac Sipping Chocolate

At her beautiful boutique, owner Kristen Hard makes amazing bean-to-bar chocolates and fun desserts like dark-chocolate-dipped orange peel. Hard infuses her superspicy dark-chocolate cocoa with six chiles and tops it with a fresh marshmallow.

Fiery Hot Chocolate

"We have lots of rich chocolate ganache all the time in the pastry kitchen, and our customers kept asking for hot chocolate," says Joanne Chang, pastry chef and owner of this relaxed bakery-café that has three locations in Boston. "So we scooped it into the espresso milk pitchers and steamed it with milk to make our signature hot chocolate. It’s thick and rich and really delicious." The "fiery" version gets its spicy flavor from chile powder and cayenne pepper.

Rogue Hot Chocolate

This coffeehouse specializes in espresso drinks but also serves a superb hot chocolate that combines steamed organic milk, cocoa powder and 70-percent-cacao bars handmade by Rogue Chocolatier’s owner Colin Gasko.

Venezuelan Spiced Drinking Chocolate

Chef-owner Christopher Elbow worked as the pastry chef at the American Restaurant in Kansas City until demand for his chocolate petits fours convinced him to launch his own candy business in 2003. Elbow’s signature Venezuelan Spiced hot chocolate contains steamed milk, dark chocolate, nine spices (including cinnamon and cayenne), two kinds of chiles, homemade whipped cream and marshmallows.

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Fran's Dark Hot Chocolate

For more than 30 years, owner Fran Bigelow has been setting candy trends—she was selling miniature chocolate bars and designer truffles before they became ubiquitous. At her flagship chocolate shop in downtown Seattle, Bigelow combines steamed organic milk with dark Felchin chocolate shavings to make her signature dark hot chocolate.

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