Rochester, NYChocolatiers and Candy Shops

Jennifer Posey founded Hedonist in 2007, and CITY Magazine's visit found a maze of tight rooms behind the counter where the team mixes, tempers, dips and drizzles by hand, often making its own peanut butter and drying its own herbs rather than buying them in. The boxed collections follow her fixations, from floral flavors to bourbon. Order the chocolate covered salted caramels, which CITY says earned Hedonist a mention in the New York Times in 2013.

Laughing Gull is run by Lindsay Tarnoff, Karla Carey and Allison Zukoski, who met as new mothers and kept a small lounge at the back of the shop for their kids, per CITY Magazine. They read the transparency reports of the companies they buy chocolate from and teach classes through Rochester Brainery. Order the chocolate mole bar, built with black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, fennel and three kinds of chili, and a drinking chocolate from a case CITY describes as packed with truffles, bark, bars and caramels.

Stever's is a family run candy maker working many of the same recipes Douglas and Hilda Stever introduced when they opened at Benton and South Goodman in 1946, and it has held its Park Avenue address for more than half a century, per CITY Magazine. The store fills with shoppers at Christmas and Easter. Order the peanut brittle and the sponge candy, which CITY names as the two things to buy.