Eat: Our Favorite Hot Chocolates Around the World
A few extraordinary cups of hot cocoa in France, Argentina, Portugal, and DC.
Believe it or not, we are connoisseurs of hot chocolate, and will travel for it. There have been a few cups we’ve had in recent years that have been life-changing, and we tell everyone to go out of their way for them. Chocolate chaud has many faces, especially in Iberia, where it can be served with a spoon as “para comer” or for eating, a thick, hot pudding. But for these purposes, we are focused on “para beber,” for drinking…the kind we like to slowly sip out of a mug in the winter months.
A few stand outs:
Buenos Aires
Park Hyatt Buenos Aires - Palacio Duhau. Here, we love sitting in the ornate dining room for breakfast, and being served a “Cafe Submarino” with accompanying “mezzalunas” or thin croissants. Their Cafe Submarino has a bar of white and dark chocolate perched in a cup, and hot milk is poured out of a kettle over the chocolate to melt it.
Washington DC / Northern Virginia
The Inn at Little Washington about 90 minutes outside of Washington, DC, is renowned for their 3-star Michelin dinners, but we actually prefer their more intimate and indulgent breakfasts, where a cup similar to Argentina’s Cafe Submarino is also served. If you can’t get away from DC, Pitango gelato shops have a pretty good drinking chocolate that will do in a pinch.
Paris
Restaurant Alain Ducasse at Le Meurice hotel in Paris is perhaps the most extraordinary and ornate setting in which to have breakfast, and to sip on their divine, high cacao percentage milk chocolate poured from a silver tea pot is otherworldly.
Lisbon
Bettina Corallo Chocolate Cafe in Lisbon serves fresh chocolate produced by her husband’s cacao plantation in São Tomé and Princípe. The made-to-order thimbles of hot chocolate there are worth a daily stop on your visits to the Portuguese capital.
From top left: a Cafe Submarino and mezzaluna at the Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires; Bettina Corallo in Lisbon; Le Meurice, Paris; inside Bettina Corallo; The Inn at Little Washington's breakfast room; a breakfast spread at the Inn at Little Washington.
Photo Source: Syllogi
Every publication will feature one unique restaurant, hotel, activity, or other travel discovery that stood out in our research. Some of these are established institutions that deserve repeat merit, while others are hidden gems that are often off the radar of most.
