Alexeeva & Jones is a new ‘Salon du Chocolat’ at 297 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill featuring exclusive, luxury handmade chocolates by leading artisan chocolatiers from the UK and abroad including Centho Chocolates and Franck Daubos – renowned Master Chocolatiers from Belgium and France; Damian Allsop’s exquisite spring water ganaches, Iain Burnett’s beautifully handcrafted chocolates using natural Scottish ingredients; Paul Wayne Gregory’s wonderful Indulgence is Everything collection; Charbonnel et Walker – one of Britain’s oldest and best loved chocolatiers; and new for Christmas, Rococo.

For the past thirty years, La Maison du Chocolat has linked passion, expertise and savoir-faire to create new chocolate collections.

The great Parisian artisan has become an international luxury chocolatier with excellence as its trademark. Each product and component is very carefully selected by the La Maison du Chocolat master chocolatier to offer a unique tasting experience.

La Maison du Chocolat has three boutique in central London (Piccadilly, Harrods and Selfridges).

La Maison du Chocolat is based in London in Piccadilly. It is a beautifully decorated store with marble flooring and wooden counters. The store also contains a small coffee shop, where you can enjoy one of the famous hot chocolates or cappuccino and one of the elegant fresh pastries made in the shop that day.

In the shop you are also invited to browse through the entire La Maison du Chocolate collection, creating boxes of individual chocolates that you can choose yourself, to make sure you enjoy every one. Or you can choose from the various selection boxes and other chocolate products.

Pierre Hermé Paris opened one of it’s Macarons & Chocolats boutiques in Belgravia in September 2010. Pierre Hermé is not only world-renowned for his delicious macarons (including a Dark Venezuelan Chocolate one and a Milk Chocolate & Passion Fruit), but also his unique chocolates. He creates some very unique combinations of flavours, such as his signature Ispahan (Rose, Lychee and Raspberry), the Corso (with a dark chocolate ganache with olive oil, fleur de sel and bits of black olive) and the Tsuki (with orange fruit paste, and roasted salted corn).

A perfect hybrid between chocolates and macarons are Pierre Hermé’s Chocolats au Macaron, which have a layer of flavoured almond paste and a layer of flavoured ganache, all enrobed in dark or milk chocolate. Completely unique to Pierre Hermé Paris!

Fisher has a wide range of chocolates on his menu, including dark, white, and milk-filled chocolates, and a wide variety of truffles. He also has a range of hand-tempered bars and lolly pops, as well as desserts.

This looks like a great resource if you live anywhere near Croydon!

Melt is a pleasant, airy shop with a marble counter along one of the walls. Here you can browse and choose your own chocolates with the help of wooden trays and tongs. The kitchen is located at the back of the site, and much of the chocolate sold is made here, on site. Chocolate tastings and master classes are also sometimes held here.

Melt is well known for their award-winning fresh chocolate collection consisting of truffles, pralines, bonbons and caramels combined with spices, teas, nuts and many original and delicious recipes. All chocolates and bars are meticulously hand made. They sell a variety of dark, milk and white chocolate slabs with combinations such as blueberry and cinnamon or nutmeg and gold. There is also a large range of chocolate bars from the Melt Bar range and hot chocolate blocks are available in 6 single origin chocolates.

In addition to the Notting Hill shop, Melt has concessions at Selfridges on Oxford Street and Wholefoods on Kensington High Street. The entire collection at Melt is designed and produced in-house by a small team of chocolatiers led by Chika Watanabe from Tokyo.

Melt is a family-owned company founded in 2006 by Louise Nason. The company has a strong commitment to sourcing from companies with credentials for supporting local communities and environment. The butter and cream used in the majority of products is organic and British. The packaging is minimal and mostly recyclable.

William Curley’s second shop opened in 2009 and is one of the largest chocolate shops in London. As well as chocolate, it has a patisserie section and small coffee area at the back. Well worth a visit.

For full details and reviews of William Curley’s chocolates see the entry for their Richmond shop.

Paul A Young’s Islington shop is a short walk from Angel tube station. It is a little bit dark inside, but you are compensated by some delicious chocolate smells. There was a decent selection of truffles, ganaches, etc as well as solid bars, drinking chocolate, and some freshly-baked brownies when we went in. Paul’s creations include unlikely-sounding flavours like Marmite and Port and Stilton truffles.

Paul Young is a Chocolatier/Patissiere born in Yorkshire and raised in a small mining town in County Durham, North East England. He worked for many years for Marco Pierre White at The Criterion and then as head pastry chef at Quo Vadis. He is very highly regarded within the ‘chocolate scene’ and won Academy of Chocolate awards three years in a row. Paul opened this first shop in April 2006 and his second shop in the city area of London in October 2007. He has also written an award-winning book Adventures with Chocolate.

Paul uses the finest chocolate from Valrhona, Amedei and Michel Cluizel, combining different blends and origins to match with his ingredients.

Rococo’s branch on Marylebone High Street, close to Regents Park, opened in 2004. For full details on Rococo chocolates see the entry for their Belgravia shop.

Rococo’s flagship store in Belgravia’s Motcomb Street opened in December 2007. It is full of hidden treasures, including a courtyard where you can site and drink hot chocolate, tea or coffee from the cafe. A glass window in the shop floor lets you see into the kitchen where the chocolates and truffles are being created. A series of classes in making chocolates is also held here as part of Rococo’s Chocolate School.

Rococo was started back in 1983 by Chantal Coady, then a punky ex-student who wanted to start a chocolate company in order to fund a career as a photographer. Almost three decades later and that business is thriving and Rococo now has three shops in central London, including a flagship store in Belgravia.

Rococo sells a wide range of chocolates and confectionary, including well over 20 different flavours of chocolate bar, from Basil and Lime to Orange and Geranium, to Christmas Pudding flavour. They also sell all kinds of other confectionary, from traditional English hard sweets to Turkish delight, crystalised ginger and novelty items like ‘chocolate cigars’.

The Rococo brand has a very strong and distinctive visual style, based on the ornate 19th century French style from which it takes its name.