Escazu Chocolates

Escazú's hot chocolate bar pours eight drinking chocolates, WRAL's roundup of Triangle spots reports, including spicy, white chocolate with spices and a peanut butter version, plus a frozen hot chocolate for warmer months. WALTER Magazine's feature on the shop's cottage-industry roots describes it as a bean-to-bar operation sourcing Costa Rican cacao, led by head chocolatier Danielle Centeno, and notes the shop has won Best of the Triangle honors repeatedly. Order the historic Spanish-recipe hot chocolate, based on the first published hot chocolate recipe from 1549, the drink WRAL calls out by name.

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A bean-to-bar chocolate shop, open since 2008 and named for the region of Costa Rica where some of its beans are grown, that makes chocolate from scratch, hand-sorting the beans and roasting them in an antique ball roaster. The handmade micro-batch chocolate becomes bars, assorted truffles and ice cream, with a handful of hot chocolates beside them. Order a box of the assorted truffles and a peanut butter hot cocoa.

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