It’s impossible to pick the best chocolate shop in Belgium. There are just too many, each one doing its own thing.
The one element almost all Belgians agree about is that it needs to be a family business, not a multinational.
Boon in Hasselt is definitely one of the best family-run chocolatiers. It’s run by Patrick Mertens and Inge Lijnen in a grand town house.
Mertens makes the chocolates an open workshop where you can watch him stir in unusual flavours like juniper, summer fruits and smoke-dried Mexican pepper.
You can pick up an elegant hand-wrapped box to take home or sit in a romantic salon with a coffee and two handmade chocolates.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
