Los Angeles Hot Chocolates Worth Seeking

Los Angeles is far from frigid, but occasionally, when the days are short and a chill hits, a steaming mug of hot chocolate is ready for soothing. You just need to know where to look. Be prepared with 10 Top Los Angeles Hot Chocolates.

Hot chocolates appear in alphabetical order instead of in order of preference.

Cacao Mexicatessen


Hot Chocolate Los Angeles

Since the name of Andrew Lujan’s family restaurant refers to chocolate, of course this Eagle Rock deli and cafe has hot chocolate. Lujan is a Mexicali native, but delves deeper into Mexico to find inspiration for Hot Cacao ($3.95). La Soledad chocolate from Oaxaca joins cinnamon and sugar in a mug with milk to form a sunburst pattern. A toasted almond scale garnish completes the sweet picture.

ChocolateBox Cafe [CLOSED]

Hot Chocolate Los Angeles

Zareh Baghdasarian relocated this chocoholic’s dream from La Cañada to the Malibu Lumber Yard, an outdoor shopping mall with sumptuous wood decor. His Chocolate Bar features Belgian chocolate infused with ingredients like mint, hemp, orange of chile pepper, which all factor into Hot Chocolate ($4.95). I enjoyed the cardamom chocolate flakes, which melted into whole milk and lent a Middle Eastern flavor profile.

Churros Calientes

Hot Chocolate Los Angeles

Sandro Finocchio’s tiny café next to the Laemmle Royal Theatre has sidewalk seats, a small bar, and brown handprints on the walls. Finocchio’s father owns an Italian restaurant in Caracas, Venezuela, and drew on a Spanish style of Chocolate Caliente ($3.25) to complement churros. His thick, rich hot chocolate has a pudding-like consistency.

Coffee + Milk

Hot Chocolate Los Angeles

Talented Ray’s and Stark Bar pastry chef Josh Graves, who also contributes to C+M, crafted Artisanal Chocolat ($4) featuring housemade chocolate ganache with steamed Straus Family Creamery whole milk, which is rich but not too sweet.

Cognoscenti Coffee

Hot Chocolate Los Angeles

Yeekai Lim’s architectural cafe in Culver City’s Arts District has Hot Chocolate ($3.50), but only off menu. The beverage combines bittersweet Twenty-Four Blackbirds fine drinking chocolate from the Dominican Republic with subtle agave sweetener and steamed Straus barista milk.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

Blog Comments

[…] Creek Rd, Malibu, (310) 456-7977, chocolateboxcafe.com Photo credits: Let Them Eat Cake, HuffPo, FoodGPS, Grub […]

We’re super excited to be with such great company! Thanks FoodGPS!!

Btw, we use Straus Barista milk for all our cocoa’s too.

thx

tazacoffeehouse, your place on this list was well deserved. That’s cool to know that you use Straus. See you soon.

Awesome list! We desperate need this for LA’s northerly cousin, San Francisco, where it IS cold enough to consider this as an option every day.

Andrew, glad you like the hot chocolate round-up. Thanks. If you were going to create a version for San Francisco, which spots would you include?

Tiago coffee bar makes a delicious burnt caramel ganache hot chocolate in Hollywood. Thanks for the list.

Josh, thanks for the suggestion. You’re actually the second person today to mention Tiago’s hot chocolate. Burnt caramel ganache sounds awesome.

Lady chocolatt on wilshire and bundy makes amazing creamy thick hot chocolate that will make you blissfully high with chocolate rush to the head

DK, thanks for the tip. Funny, when I was doing my hot chocolate research, I was writing across the street at Literati Cafe and wondered about Lady Chocolatt, but they were already closed for the night.

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