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Something strange has happened to the chocolate aisle over the past few years. The bars have got smaller, the ingredient lists have got longer, and the taste — let’s be honest — has got blander. But while the multinationals were trimming grams, a quiet revolution was taking place in workshops, bakeries and micro-factories across Britain.
The UK now has one of the most exciting craft chocolate scenes in the world. Some makers roast and grind their own single-origin cocoa beans; others work with exceptional couverture and pour their energy into inventive flavours instead. Here, in no particular order, are ten brands worth swapping your usual Dairy Milk for.
The Chocolate Smiths
Newcastle upon Tyne — thechocolatesmiths.com
The reigning champions of the “bizarre bar”. The Chocolate Smiths make large-format, wildly inventive bars — Black Forest Gateau, pistachio cannoli, coffee and stroopwafel — handmade in Newcastle with chocolate sourced from Colombian producer Luker.
They have gone properly viral, so much so that the website restocks just twice a week and bars still sell out within hours. Bizarre Bars cost £9–£12 for a hefty 145g, with smaller bars and gift boxes from around £5. If you want to see how far the filled bar has been pushed, start here.
Ocelot
Edinburgh — ocelotchocolate.com
Arguably the most beautiful packaging in British chocolate — bold graphic blocks that look as good on a shelf as the chocolate tastes. Ocelot makes certified organic bars using Original Beans couverture exclusively, including cocoa from Femmes de Virunga, the world’s first female cocoa cooperative, and with no emulsifiers or preservatives.
The flavours are grown-up and precise: blood orange, grapefruit and pepper, violet milk. Bars are £6.99, with gift collections from £24.
Chocolarder
Falmouth, Cornwall — chocolarder.com
One of the UK’s true bean-to-bar makers — they actually roast and grind their own beans, on renovated antique machinery, in Falmouth. Founded in 2012 by former pastry chef Mike Longman, Chocolarder has built a reputation for meticulous single-origin bars (Madagascar Bejofo, Peru Asháninka) and beautifully British flavoured bars like Cornish Sea Salt and Cornish Honeycomb, plus an unusual “Again” range made with circular-economy ingredients. Bars start at £6.95.
Cox & Co
Somerset — coxandcocacao.com
A farm-to-bar producer with a savoury streak. Cox & Co’s cult Miso & Caramel bar has a serious fanbase among vegans — creamy, umami-rich and nothing like the sickly confected bars you might expect — and the range runs through bee pollen and honey, blood orange crunch and Aleppo chilli and cherry.
Bars are a very reasonable £4.50 for 70g, with bundles and hot chocolate spoons alongside.
NeverLost
Plymouth, Devon — neverlostchocolate.com
The newest name on this list, and one of the most interesting. NeverLost launched in Plymouth with a tight, four-bar range of filled bars that takes the classic confectionery flavours of your childhood — the peanut caramel bar, the Jaffa cake, the biscuit-and-caramel stick — and rebuilds them properly, with quality couverture and a strictly no-additives, no-preservative, real-ingredient approach. The brand uses ICAM couveture which is a family-owned Italian company who source 80% organic chocolate and pay their farmers fairly.
At £4.50 a bar, it is also one of the most affordable on this list, with stockists popping up across Devon and Cornwall. Or, grab your own bar online.
Pump Street
Orford, Suffolk — pumpstreetchocolate.com
The bean-to-bar maker that started life as a village bakery — and it shows. Pump Street’s signature bars fuse single-farm, directly traded cocoa with bakery inspiration: the cult Rye, Crumb, Milk & Sea Salt and Brown Bread bars taste exactly as good as they sound.
A King’s Award winner in 2023, they print the farm of origin on every label. Bars run roughly £7.45–£9.95.
Gnaw
Norwich — gnawchocolate.co.uk
The playful one. Gnaw makes generously flavoured bars from Colombian cocoa (Luker) — banoffee pie, New York cheesecake, espresso martini, sticky toffee pudding — with no palm oil, recyclable packaging and a flavour list that reads like a dessert menu. Bars are just £3.99, making Gnaw the ideal entry point for anyone who thinks craft chocolate is all 85% single-origin and no fun.
Firetree
London — firetreechocolate.co.uk
For the single-origin purists. Firetree sources cocoa from single estates on volcanic islands — Madagascar’s Sambirano Valley, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, remote Vanuatu — where the terroir gives each bar radically different flavour: raspberry and citrus from Madagascar, sticky date from the Solomons.
Their 100% cocoa bar has picked up five stars in The Telegraph, and they sell couverture for home bakers too. Bars are £4.25, which is frankly a bargain for this category. You can also find them on Amazon.
Heist
Cardiff — heistchocolate.com
An award-winning Welsh micro-factory doing things the slow way: stone-ground chocolate in micro-batches from single-origin beans, with hands touching every part of the process right down to the stitched paper envelope each bar is packed in.
Beyond the bars (the 70% Peruvian dark sits around £8), Heist is beloved for its filled confections — Spanish almond caramel, bonfire toffee, nougat — described in one review as “an outrageous tuck-box treat”.
Chococo
Dorset — chococo.co.uk
The grandee of this list: the Purbeck Chocolate Co has been handmade in Dorset since 2002, racking up over 140 fine food awards along the way. Chococo is the perfect gifting brand — beautiful boxed chocolates, seasonal novelty shapes, hot chocolate flakes and award-winning bars (the Midnight Orange dark is a favourite), all with 100% plastic-free packaging.
Bars from £5.50, with boxed collections and hampers to suit every budget.
The verdict
What links all ten — from the viral filled bars of Newcastle to the single-estate purists of London — is a refusal to compromise on ingredients. You’ll pay £4 to £12 a bar rather than £1.20, but you’ll taste the difference in the first square. Buy one bar a fortnight instead of three mass-produced ones, and you’ll never look at the chocolate aisle the same way again.
Prices checked at time of writing; availability can vary, especially with small-batch producers.
