Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier — Restaurant in Madison

Beautiful artisan chocolate shop. The atmosphere from the moment you walk in is fantasic- the shop employees acknowledge you with a friendly "hello" and you are emersed in the delicious smell of fresh chocolate.

They have a great variety of chocolates, truffles, chocolate-covered items, and too many speciality chocolates to name!

They have a viewing window where you can see the in-house process.

They have samples at the front register. The dark chocolate is my favorite.

An awesome aspect of this shop is they take great care in ensuring their chocolate is ethically sourced. They do their best to track the supply chain of the cocoa to avoid human exploitation.

This taken into consideration drives up the cost of the products, which are expensive, but in paying the higher costs you are supporting a local business, it's staff to earn a liveable wage and not contributing to the exploitation of children and cocoa farmers in other nations. This makes it a worthwhile purchase in my opinion.

There is paid/free street parking (depending on the time and day of the week) as well as free residential parking a few blocks away. The store is ADA accessible and as to be assumed, the products accomodate vegetarian...

The Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier stop allows you to spend some time as Gail herself (at least with our tour with #madisonfoodtours .  She had just got back from Peru on a cacao farm tour.  She let us know that Cacao trees only grow about 20° to the north and south of the Equator.  She insisted that the farmers she works with “are using sustainable practices and are paid well for their crops.” (learn about Gail's world of Cacao).  Gail then spends some time with you providing you a bit of history of chocolate in the world today, how she views the cacao bean and the industry, and the taste – oh yes you do get to taste some chocolate.   I grew up the sweet taste of chocolate and lived in Belgium for some time.  I was educated today with taste and economics.  Belgium owns about 60% of the chocolate industry, and hence spends a lot of $$$$ to get us to believe they have the...

This place, and these people, take chocolate seriously. I've been acquainted with Gail for about five years now. She seems to always manage to have a team of great people working with her at the shop. Over the years, I've consistently found the truffles to be as good as any I've had, anywhere in the world, and I've done my share of traveling. Flavors and ingredients are clearly the result of both art and science. I've always felt welcome whether the people behind the counter recognize my face or not. The selection is broad, and free bites are usually available. This is as good as it gets. No wonder it has become a lasting institution...