This year, the American public is expected to blow $29 billion on Valentine’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation. That’s $1.5 billion more in consumer spending than 2025 — somehow, against all odds, the country is in the mood for lovin’.
Some of that money will go toward flowers, spa treatments and classy dinners, some no doubt toward lingerie and boxers. And a lot will go toward chocolate. After the winter holidays, Valentine’s is the busiest time of year for most chocolate shops.
In the diverse Bay Area, chocolatiers are busy making an incredible range of treats. There are Mexican bonbons in flavors of tropical fruit and tequila, chocolate-dipped strawberries in heart-shaped boxes, French-Japanese chocolates inspired by origami. And nudge, nudge: Many places offer shipping right up to the week before V-Day.
Here are how three local chocolatiers are preparing for the holiday. Drop by them or other shops to grab something for your honey on Feb. 14.
Deux Cranes is a chocolate shop inspired by Japan and France and, much like the train systems of each country, it is positively buzzing right now. “We have been preparing since November” for Valentine’s Day, says owner Michiko Marron-Kibbey.
Having grown up in Japan and the U.S., Marron-Kibbey later trained in pastry at the acclaimed culinary-arts school Ferrandi in Paris. She worked at a Franco-Japanese pastry and chocolate shop in the 7th Arrondissement before opening her own similar business a few years ago in Los Gatos.
The base chocolate comes from France and Ecuador – Valrhona and Republica de Cacao, respectively. It is melted and tempered locally, following what the chocolatier calls a “modern interpretation of traditional Japanese philosophy.”
“It’s about offering elevated, Japanese-inspired flavors but marrying them with French chocolate tradition,” Marron-Kibbey says. “We like to sneak in lesser-known Japanese ingredients to celebrate those flavors that I grew up with, and do it in a way that’s elegant and sophisticated.”
For Valentine’s Day, the shop is reintroducing some old favorites like chocolate bars made from pistachios and rose or dark chocolate and raspberry. It’s also launching a mysterious prototype code-named the “Kyoto Bar,” which is a take on Dubai chocolate, with pistachio paste mixed with matcha powder and crispy rice pearls. “It’s a nice balance between the bitterness of the matcha and the nuttiness of the pistachio,” she says.
There are intricately constructed bonbons. One combines passion-fruit jelly, coconut-cream ganache and shortbread; others incorporate raspberry and lime or the molasses warmth of Okinawa black sugar. Then there are layered “cookie bars” that are shareable – a little treat to indulge in with your Valentine – in combos like passion fruit-matcha cream or salted-caramel ganache with shortbread-cookie butter, sort of like a kicked-up Twix bar.
Deux Cranes ships across the country, and encourages people to order by Feb. 7 for East Coast delivery and Feb. 10 for local shipping. Or customers can pick up chocolate bars in certain Bay Area stores like Bi-Rite, or simply drop by the Los Gatos operation (which offers tasting samples).
Both the chocolate and its packaging, made by a friend, leans toward the kind of geometrically beautiful presentation – influenced by folding origami — you’d expect from top Japanese product design.
“We want people to feel really special when they either purchase this for themselves or if they’re gifting it to someone or receiving it. I want this to feel like a special occasion,” Marron-Kibbey says. “But part of my philosophy is it should taste as good as it looks. From the very beginning, that’s always been a core proposition.”
Details: Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays at 15531 Union Ave., Los Gatos; deuxcranes.com
Casa de Chocolates, Berkeley and Oakland
Beautiful bonbons that are hand-decorated with a paintbrush or swish of the finger, in flavors like Oaxacan mole, cajeta (goat-milk caramel) and Mayan espresso – that’s what’s on offer at this East Bay shop that pays tribute to the Mesoamerican origins of chocolate.
“It goes back 10,000 or so years. They’ve now discovered that the first civilizations that used cacao were Indigenous communities that extended from Ecuador into Mexico,” says Jesus Chavez, who co-owns Casa de Chocolates with Linda Sanchez. “They were using it not just for consumption, but as currency. It really was embedded in their culture.”
Only later did Europeans take cacao back to their homelands and later to Africa, where it was turned into a crop and mass-produced. But here it’s all about south of the border, with small-farmed cacao ethically sourced and single-origin from Ecuador and Peru, and ingredients like cinnamon and coffee traveling up from Latin America (or if local, at least inspired by those far-away roots).
Things are muy caliente in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day. “We usually hire a full team during this time and folks are just busy making chocolate, usually as early as 4.30 a.m. until 6 p.m. depending on the shifts,” Chavez says. Fortunately, the Berkeley-based business expanded in late 2025 and now has an Oakland shop, holding a large chocolate-manufacturing kitchen. “So it’s really giving us the space and capacity to produce at larger quantities.”
Special for Valentine’s is an “Amor Collection” with chocolates shaped like angelitos – little winged cherubs – roses, bursting hearts (not the organ, the fun emoji kind) and heart-shaped boxes of truffles. Then there is the shop’s prismatic collection of staples, melted and tempered in-house into bonbons and chocolate bars. Orders should be placed by Feb. 8 to guarantee arrival on or before Valentine’s Day – or people can just swing by one of the two shops and pick up something tasty.
That might be a “Fuerte” bar crusted with roasted quinoa, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), almonds, chile flakes and sea salt, or a “Flor” bar with dried rose and hibiscus petals (the latter an ingredient in the ruby-red beverage agua de jamaica). Or it might be bonbons ranging in color from electric-purple to tiger-lily orange to green-gold dust, flavored with tamarind, guava and Flor de Cana rum. There are vegan bonbons – a passion fruit with coconut milk and a mango with dark chocolate and fruit puree – and niche offerings like smoky “Ancestral Mezcal” and Tapatio, the popular Mexican-American hot sauce.
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A chocolatier fills molds at Casa de Chocolates in Oakland on Jan. 27, 2026. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
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A chocolatier fills molds at Casa de Chocolates in Oakland on Jan. 27, 2026. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
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The kitchen also dabbles in baking, producing one of the richest Tres Leches cakes locally available and an “El Rey” chocolate cake, so uber-chocolatey it’s boldly named “The King.” The ancients in Mesoamerican societies consumed chocolate as a drink, and you’ll find drinking chocolate here, too, in both hot and frozen forms. For nostalgia heads, the latter tastes like a particularly decadent, chili-flake-whipped-cream-topped Frosty from a Mexican Wendy’s.
“As someone that’s lactose intolerant,” Chavez says,” I will definitely sacrifice myself to have one because they are very good.”
Details: Open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays at 2629 Ashby Ave., Berkeley, and noon-7 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays at 4228 Park Blvd., Oakland; casadechocolates.com
Sharona’s Chocolate Shop, San Mateo
Sharona Laherrere worked as a florist before she became a chocolatier.
The San Mateo chocolate shop owner had grown up working at her family’s long-standing floral shop, Edmond’s Plaza Florist. About 17 years ago, the See’s Candies outpost next to the florist closed, and her dad encouraged her to try opening her own chocolate shop.
“I opened my store knowing nothing,” she says. “I made batch after batch until I made some really good chocolate. And then everybody started coming.”
Word about her chocolates spread once she started selling her chocolates at Outside Lands, a tradition she returned to year after year. A little over five years ago, she closed her shop to have and raise young kids, but reopened it just two months ago.
Today, she offers an array of small-batch, handcrafted chocolates and chocolate-dipped treats, including dipped marshmallows, Cayenne chili pepper chocolate, dipped ginger and more. In addition to making chocolates, she offers flower arranging and chocolate tasting classes by reservation.
For Valentine’s Day, she’ll be offering her signature chocolate collection – available in a heart-shaped box, plus a secret menu with chocolate-dipped strawberry baskets. She also encourages people to stop next door at her family’s flower shop: “It’s a one-stop shop for Valentine’s Day.”
What else should visitors try? “The Dubai bars we have are out of this world,” she says.
Details: Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily at 305 S. San Mateo Drive, San Mateo; sharonaschocolateshop.com
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