The Chocolate Tour of New York

My friend and I got a groupon for the chocolate tour and had an amazing time! Our tour guide Kyle had a history background so we not only got the chocolate experience but we felt like we learned a lot about the city. We visited 7 different spots, each with its own flavorful and eclectic type of chocolate. My favorite was the bacon flavored bar at our last spot Vosges. Definitely recommend this tour for any sweet lover!!!

I found a Groupon for this tour, read great reviews, and was excited for it.
This tour had several instances which made it a less than desirable tour. First, the tour guide, Ben, was incredibly difficult to locate. We met outside Chelsea Market, which is a bustling area. Our tour guide was soft spoken, and as such was not easy to spot. He also was not wearing anything to make him stand out in a crowd. We had to ask several people before we found him. Not the best start.
What upsets me the most was we only made 5 of the 8 advertised stops. This is not a cheap tour, and part of the cost goes to paying for expensive chocolates. When you miss 37.5% of your stops, that’s a significant difference. Ben did not mention this at all, nor did he try and make up for the missed stops. At the end, I confronted him about the misses. First he acted confused, until I brought up the website on my phone and asked about specific stops we missed. His responses ranged from «they were closed» to «we are still in contract negotiations with them.» These were completely unacceptable answers, as the tour is a partnership with the businesses and should know their schedules.
You’re probably thinking that only having a 62.5% complete tour would be fairly heavy on history. You would be wrong. We walked through 3 distinct NY neighborhoods, and not once was this mentioned. There also was a 20 minute period where we walked from one chocolate spot to the other. No stops. No history. No tour. Just walking.
I believe this instance was a product of bad hiring and potentially a bad day. I have read glowing reviews of this tour, and was very excited for it.
Key takeaway, I would not recommend this tour. Our guide also runs tours on the Chocolate Tour of New York, the Cupcake Tour of New York, Ghost Tours, and the Street Art Tour. I would not recommend these either.

I found a Groupon for this online and I love me some chocolate so I figured why not nibble on some goodies and then walk it off! I chose the two person option which came to $ 48 and Groupon was also running a 20% off promotion so I believe it came to about $ 18 per person. I’m still rather new to the area, so I was also looking forward to learning more about the city.
The walking tour itself started in the front of the Chelsea Market and went through the meatpacking district. The locations vary depending on the day you do your tour and the goodies you eat will include but not limited to: chocolate, candy, cookies, cupcakes, and macarons. I believe we walked to 7 different locations (can’t remember all of the names.) You spend about 10 – 15 minutes at each shop and get free samples of the above mentioned items. If you chose to purchase anything you also get a tour discount which is about 10−15%.
There were a few cons that made me deduct a star and the first one is that I didn’t learn very much history about NY. Our guide mentioned a few tidbits about each shop but I was a bit disappointed I didn’t really learn much about the city. Also, the groups are rather large, mine was about 20 people so maybe the ones towards the front got more info than I did.
The shops and samples itself were yummy, but because our group was so large we didn’t get to go inside Magnolia Bakery. We had to stay outside while our tour guide went in to get our samples. It would have been fun to explore the inside of that place.
Overall it was definitely a fun activity to do, especially if you have relatives or friends visiting from out of town, or if you’re just looking for something different to do. I don’t think the tour was worth the full price (I think it runs about $ 40 each) but it’s definitely worth the Groupon discounted price. Also, bring comfortable shoes– you’ll be walking for about 4 hours. Next up for me, drunk history of new york! :P

Chocolate is known as an APHRODISIAC, a comfort food, or a way to shush up a woman when she’s PMSing. And I want to thank this company for setting up such an amazing event in the city. I want to say that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED this Tour for the following reasons:
1) Alex is the most amazing tour guide ever! I love how he gave us a history of New York while going to each vendor. He gave us interesting facts such as where the term «hang over» came from or how the middle finger came about. (I guess you have to go on the tour to get the answers or waste your time on google cause I’m not going to be the one to spoil the goodies for you). It was definitely a very entertaining tour. But he still kept it very appropriate. Great for a girls day/​night out or even a date night. I highly recommend going during the day time (if you can) so you can avoid the human traffic that spills all over the city.
2) The 8 vendors that this company picked out were all great options. Many of them gave whole cupcakes/​cookies/​chocolates and not only bits and pieces. Besides, how much chocolate can you have without getting overly disgusted by it. Also, if you check in with Unilocal,they give you extra samples. I was going to go to lunch right afterward, but I was full from just the whole tour. The vendors they chose were Li-​Lac, Chocolate Bar, Magnolia, Milk & Cookies, Bisous Ciao, Pasticceria Bruno, Xocolatti, and Vosges Haut Chocolat. My absolute favorite was Xocolatti! Try their Mango Piprika White Chocolate!!!
3) What’s better than having GREAT selections on chocolates? Tasting all these vendors with a huge discount from Groupon! A friend and I got in for $ 35 for two people (definitely better than the advertised $ 50/​per person). Now there’s a difference between being frugal and cheap. Frugal is all about using your money wisely so you can attend multiple events and getting the most bang for your bucks! Being cheap is keeping all your money and not being able to enjoy it… unless your dream is to swim around a pile of dirty money! Don’t laugh, cause I bet there are people like that out there!
4) Keep your groupon voucher because if you ever go back to these 8 vendors, you will FOREVER have a 10% discount at the store on all of your future purchases. I thought this was an overall GREAT DEAL!!!
Just FYI: It’s supposed to be a 2 hours tour, but Alex likes to give more history lessons and he wants us to take our time with each vendor, so the whole tour came out to be actually 3 hours. You start from Chelsea Markets in the Meatpacking District and then you end up in Soho!

GREAT, GOOD, NOT SO GOOD and AMENDS
The GREAT: Our guide Alex made the tour very enjoyable as he guided us through various lower Manhattan neighborhoods enlightening us with a plethora of facts, figures and history of both the neighborhoods and chocolate. He was truly knowledgeable, professional, friendly and went out of his way to make up for the bad side of the tour which was out of his control. As guides go, he was excellent and enjoyable!
The GOOD: The neighborhoods are lovely and so very different from mid-​town. The 8 or 9 chocolatiers and bakeries at which we stopped gave everyone samples that ranged from cannoli, large cookies and cupcakes to minuscule pieces of broken chocolate bars. Several shops offered free water and restrooms. No question you can easily get «sugared out» by tour’s end, so you may want to carry a water, coffee or capucchino or buy one along the way.
The NOT SO GOOD: the tour advertises groups of 20, which is really pushing the limits of keeping everyone together and fitting into the amount of space available in most of the shops; our group totaled 35 to start. Other reviews seem to suggest that overbooking is not unusual. People in our very large group got separated almost immediately (Alex stopped until we were once again one) each stop took nearly twice as long, so a two hour tour quickly began to approach 4 hours, which caused some with other obligations to dropout along the way.
The AMENDS: upon contacting Great New York Tours on behalf of two couples, noting that we were less than delighted with the size of the group, they compensated me with two complimentary vouchers for future food tours. Since we frequently visit the city, we will most likely use them, assuming we can be assured of a workable sized group.
SUMMARY: if you can get a 30% discounted price through LivingSocial, Groupon or some similar site and your group is no larger than 15 – 20, go for it. If you get Alex as a guide, think of it as a bonus. Note: if chocolate melts in your fingers, you are just not eating it fast enough!

The chocolate tour of NYC is great for tourists and locals alike. Be prepared to eat a lot of sugar in a short amount of time! By the end of the tour, all that I wanted was a bottle of water.
Have you ever noticed that some of the signs in NY are brown and white, instead of the typical green and white? The brown indicates a historic neighborhood, in which the building integrity must be maintained regardless of the current lessee/​tenant. This is something that has absolutely nothing to do with chocolate, but is just one thing that I learned on this tour.
We also passed by the building used as the outside of the apartment from Friends. Who doesn’t get a kick out of seeing that?!? And, I likely would have walked right past it without noticing if the tour guide (Walter) hadn’t instructed us to look up. It’s instantly recognizable once someone mentions it. I included a photo if you’re on a mission to go find this now. It’s in the West Village.
And, of course, there is chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. We stopped at:
1. Li-​lac Chocolates
2. The Chocolate Bar
3. Magnolia Bakery
4. Milk & Cookies
5. Bisous Ciao
6. Pasticceria Bruno
7. Xocolatti
8. Vosges Haut Choclat
At each one, we received chocolate goodies. Including a full-​sized cupcake at Magnolia, a chocolate cannoli, a huge double chocolate chip cookie, chocolate raspberry macaroon, etc… And, when there were extras, our guide passed them out to the people who seemed to be enjoying that treat the most. I ended up with two chocolate raspberry macaroons from Bisous Ciao. I am eating the second one as I write this review and it is epic.
We were also able to go inside the shop and look around, buy something, or just take pictures. Wear decent shoes because it is a pretty long walk. The tour lasted over two hours, so our guide warned us when our next stop would have restrooms that we could use. The group was about 12 – 15 people, so we each got to talk to Walter a little bit and I feel like he customized the tour somewhat to our particular interests and levels of familiarity with the city. And when we were all done, he got us each pointed in the right direction back to our hotels and other destinations.
With the Groupon rate, this whole experience was $ 25 (normally $ 50). And you do have to make reservations in advance. You could probably save a couple bucks by just going to these places on your own, but the walking tour was what really added value and made it an experience. Highly recommend it!

I went on this tour from a deal off of Groupon. I only recommend taking this tour if you are getting a discount. It honestly isn’t worth the full price. You DO learn little facts and tidbits about New York that you would have probably not known otherwise. On our tour, we visited 7 places. It is very safe to say that not all bakeries are created equal. Some of the 7 we visited were outstanding and some deserve to be kicked off the of the tour as they do not deserve the foot traffic that this tour brings. The first outstanding bakery we visited was Magnolia. What a gem of a place. I took their menu to go back and visit in the future. Milk and Cookies bakery was also very high quality and unique. The staff was very warm and inviting as well, and they have a cozy seating arrangement. Li-​Lac Chocolates was terrible. A tiny stuffy place with little variety in what they sell. The sample they gave us tasted horrendous and their chocolates start at around 35 $ per pound. The rest of the places were alright. A small detail also worth mentioning is that the tour guide left us at one of the places. Yes, he took the group and left us. At each stop, you are encouraged to make your own purchases if you want and the tour guide waits while everyone finishes up. At one of the places, my fiancé and I were at the register paying for a purchase and when we turned around the group was gone. They had went down a block and made a turn and if we were not lucky enough to spot them then our tour would have been cut in half. I’m not sure if this was done intentionally or by accident, but either way it does not look good. Also, just know that if you want to bring any goodies home, you have to to purchase them yourself.(Duh) The amount of chocolate you receive is very minimal. If you want good chocolate, I recommend just visiting Magnolia Bakery, Milk and Cookies, or Pasteria Bruno.