In a previous post I wrote about the two most famous chocolatiers in Amsterdam. Yesterday I focused on a far less known chocoholic place in this city on my blog: Van Velze's . The chocolaterie and patisserie was founded by Robbert van Velze and Deborah Kilroy more than 5 years ago, but remains one of the less known chocolate place in Amsterdam. This might be due to its location in Amsterdam Oost, which is still a fairly underrated part of the city. However, van Velze is just another good reason for a short visit of Oost. Van Velze offers a small but good selection of bonbons, as well as other chocolate products and tartes. The bonbons are traditionally enrobed chocolates, mostly with ganache fillings. They use single origin chocolate for their products and have a number of very good flavor combinations. If I'm correct, the chocolate actually comes from Costa Rica and is made by Belcolade in Belgium (far less known than Callebaut, Belcolade is another big chocolate manufacturer in Belgium).

Among my favorites was the Port/Cranberry, which has a very delicious dark ganache filling and a dark chocolate coating. I also enjoyed the Red Wine/Licorice, which somewhat surprised me. Personally, I found none of the red wine or a licorice chocolates I ate up till now really convincing. Yet the mixture of red wine and licorice combines astonishingly well, I found. The acidity and fruitiness of the red wine is nicely complemented by the sweet, herbal taste of the licorice.

Some of Van Velze's chocolates...