Ritual Chocolate (http://www.ritualchocolate.com/) is my new go-to eating chocolate. They received a 2016 Good Food Award for their Mid-Mountain blend and their 75% Belize single origin bars, though my favorite is their incredibly complex and deeply flavored single-origin Madagascar bar. They may be harder to find in stores depending on where you are, but they're SO worth ordering online.
Bonnat (France) and Dandelion (San Francisco) make the best chocolate I've ever tasted. They both make quite a few different single-origin or blended bean chocolates, some of which I liked a lot more than others, but they were all very good. These are both quite expensive and somewhat hard to come by; my standby eating chocolate is Theo.
I like Theo, number one for its taste, but also because it does not contain emulsifiers. They just seem unnecessary, and if there is any chance they contribute to digestive problems I will avoid them just in case.
Scharffen Berger (now owned by, I think
, Ghirardelli" is an excellent brand produced in the SF area (home of Guittard, makers of the best known chips). When I was young and foolish, lo these many years ago, I did a bunch of tasting and came up with Poulain, a French brand, as my overall favorite, but I don't know what they're up to nowadays.
Scharffen Berger is owned by Hershey now - they closed both Scharffen Berger facilities in CA about 10 years ago and moved all production to their plant in Robinson, IL. It's still good quality chocolate but its not a standout in my opinion.
from everywhere else: pretty much impossible to choose imho because there's so much variation, but I enjoy Claudio Corallo, Theo, Grenada Chocolate Company, and for your mass produced hypermarket stuff Ritter Sport.
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, Ghirardelli" is an excellent brand produced in the SF area (home of Guittard, makers of the best known chips). When I was young and foolish, lo these many years ago, I did a bunch of tasting and came up with Poulain, a French brand, as my overall favorite, but I don't know what they're up to nowadays.
from everywhere else: pretty much impossible to choose imho because there's so much variation, but I enjoy Claudio Corallo, Theo, Grenada Chocolate Company, and for your mass produced hypermarket stuff Ritter Sport.