La Maison du Chocolat

Robert Linxe, a Basque chocolatier the French press dubbed 'the wizard of ganache,' founded La Maison du Chocolat in Paris in 1977 — by legend on the site of a former wine cellar, fittingly, for he treated cacao with a taster's vocabulary of origins and finishes. Linxe's revolution was restraint: ganaches of extraordinary smoothness, flavors — fresh mint, lemon, raspberry — infused rather than overlaid, sugar held in check so the chocolate itself carried the composition. The house's dark-brown boxes became the Parisian standard for serious chocolate gifting, and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré address places it among the street's luxury procession. The ganache assortment remains the essential purchase — Linxe's classics preserved alongside seasonal work — with the éclairs and truffles close behind. Taste the plain dark ganaches first; the house's entire philosophy of chocolate as vintage is in them.

The ganaches keep poorly in heat and gloriously for a week in cool rooms; buy the plain assortment first and let the infused flavors argue for a second box.