How to Find the Best Chocolate in Geneva with Choco Pass

Guillaume Bichet chocolate shop photo credit Anna Mindess

Did you know that the Swiss eat more chocolate per capita than any other country? If you find yourself in Geneva, you may feel overwhelmed by choice with more than a dozen esteemed chocolate shops, many of whom boast long heritages. How to pick the ones to visit?

Martel selections photo credit Anna Mindess

A fun way to start sampling Geneva’s sweet treats is called a Choco Pass. For a modest fee (currently 30 Swiss Francs), you get a 24-hour pass which allows you to visit eight of the city’s leading chocolate shops. Each one will present you with a bag of samples and, if you are lucky, some extra tastes. It’s like a combination treasure hunt and Halloween. Getting the most out of the experience requires some planning. Here are our top tips.

Tips for Using the Choco Pass

Check shop hours and locations

Research the shop's offerings
Map out your stops
Choose your start time
Pace yourself, stash some chocolate for another day

First, you need to plan your 24-hour window (maybe 3 pm to 3 pm?) and then find the shops, which isn’t hard, since the Choco Pass website has a map plus a link to learn more about each spot. It’s a good idea to check on opening days and hours (many are closed on Sundays). Your 24-hour period begins as soon as you enter your first shop. When you arrive at each designated chocolate shop, it feels like Halloween, but instead of chanting “Trick or Treat,” you (and probably several other visitors) say the magic words, “Choco Pass.” Then you are each given a little bag of half a dozen or more different chocolate treats.

You will notice that every shop displays a score of confectionery sweets in mesmerizing colors and creative shapes with intriguing flavor combinations. Don’t be surprised, however, that most of the Choco Pass bags contain small square chocolates, which are still bursting with flavor, but probably easier to pack in quantity. Of course, you can always purchase something else that catches your eye; the Choco Pass gives you a 10% discount on anything in the store. If children are in your group, they get specially chosen treats and their Choco Pass Kids costs six Swiss Francs. The shops may scan the QV code on your pass, so have it at the ready.

If you can resist gobbling up your booty on the way to the next shop, it might be worth pulling up the company’s website and perusing their photos of perhaps two dozen different squares, each with a chocolate code, a very subtle squiggle, a line, three dots, or a couple of raised bumps. When you find the photo matching your sweet, you can more fully appreciate its subtle flavors, for example, Earl Grey tea, or a mélange of grapefruit, plum and vanilla.

As I started my sweet search, I discovered that, as on Halloween, some hosts just hand out bags without much interaction, while others are warm, engaging, and generous with their time and treats.

Here’s my review of six shops. (I didn’t make it to all eight, but felt totally satisfied):

Guillaume Bichet

It was a little tricky to find Guillaume Bichet as the entrance to the shop is not on the big street where it is listed, rue du Rhône, but is actually facing the Rhône River. Finally, I spotted a large window filled with 3-foot-high sunflowers, all made from chocolate! The woman who greeted me was warm and welcoming and briefly told me that Guillaume Bichet’s chocolates have won many awards. She pointed out one winner with an unusual flavor component: Sous Bois, which features an infusion of bolets (a type of mushroom) with a confit of red fruits. One of their special sweets are their Princess Almonds, which are roasted, then caramelized for crunch, covered with chocolate and dusted with cocoa--yum.

I also liked the Corsica, which features hazelnut praline, clementine jelly and crunchy cocoa bean. That’s a lot of sophisticated tastes, but they seamlessly meld in a 1inch-by-1inch chocolate square.

Du Rhône

Du Rhone chocolate — Du Rhone photo credit Anna Mindess

In a world of mostly little brown squares, one of the most striking chocolate confections I encountered was a 3-D wave of chocolate called Noble du Rhône (in milk, dark or white chocolate). It honors the Rhône River that cuts through the center of Geneva and was created by a chocolate company founded in 1875 that is also named for the city’s most iconic feature. The friendly salesclerk gave me a taste of the crunchy wave, as he told me that their chocolate comes exclusively from São Tomé. Although several of the chocolate companies claim to be the oldest in Geneva, Du Rhône, which has gone through a succession of owners, boasts that their treats have been enjoyed by the likes of Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy, Grace Kelly, Colette, General de Gaulle, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

La Bonbonniere

At this shop, which is also a cafe, Choco Pass guests are also given a small cup of deep, rich hot chocolate, along with their treat bags. I noticed some their chocolate creations took intriguing forms. One was a bench with an open book and the word Merci. When I inquired, the clerk explained that it represented a school bench, and that this confection is traditionally given by students to their teachers on the last day of school. I liked their Grand Cru 68% chocolate, which featured a caramelized nut ganache and The Marco Polo, an intense, prize-winning chocolate with 62% Ecuadorean ganache, flavored with black tea, caramelized cocoa nibs and a burst of Matcha tea.

Favarger

An almost 200-year-old chocolatier, Favarger started in 1826 as a classic Swiss love story between a watchmaker and chocolate maker’s daughter. This shop and its chocolates were my favorite. The clerk was warm and engaging and offered me extra tastes of their most popular treats, called Aveline, which are milk and dark versions of a creamy praline with tiny slivers of hazelnuts from Piedmont. While most shops offer almonds enrobed in chocolate. Their version uses hazelnuts, which were crunchy and creamy at the same time.

Zeller

Although I was charmed by sweet marzipan mice and ladybugs in the window, the clerk just handed out little bags with minimal interaction and I found the treats I sampled too sweet for my taste.

Martel

Martel first opened in1818 and now has 10 tea rooms in Geneva and surrounding areas.

Instead of taking my treats and running, I took a seat in the café and had a relaxing cup of tea while I studied the samples and slowly savored a couple of them. I loved the roasted and salted peanut praline, coated with 40% Brazilian milk chocolate. The Swiss chocolatiers have a way of including the tiniest shards of nuts, which provide a subtle crunch. I also appreciated their ganache, infused with roasted coffee beans, and coated with 66% Venezuelan dark chocolate.

Just like at Halloween, if you have a modicum of self-restraint, your bags of goodies can last much longer than 24 hours. If not, enjoy!!