Dorado Chocolates

Grass Valley, United States

4.1

20 reviews

Accepts Credit Cards

Contacts

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Telephone:
+1 530-272-6715
Website:
www.doradochocolates.com
Address:
104 E Main St, Grass Valley, CA, 95945
Categories:
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Bussiness info

Accepts Credit Cards
Yes
Parking
Street
Wheelchair Accessible
Yes

Today

Today –
Local time (Grass Valley) 23:23 Thursday, 17 July 2025

Business hours

Monday –
Tuesday –
Wednesday –
Thursday –
Friday –
Saturday –
Sunday –

Description

Specialties

Dorado Chocolates specialized in hand made artisan chocolates. We feature only the freshest and finest ingredients available. Hand selected cacao. Additionally, we feature a full espresso bar, Café Dorado.

History

Established in 2004.

Many people ask what makes our chocolate taste so good. Our Signature — D Old World chocolates may have up to five different chocolates combined to create the perfect flavor profile for a particular piece.

These chocolates can be single bean varietal couverture from Eastern Venezuela (the Napa chocolate) or some other equally exotic spot around the globe, blended chocolates from France or Belgium, and a little from Berkeley.

These couverture chocolates are picked by piece for their complimentary qualities and unique flavor profiles. Some are a bit earthy, some have slight fruity or caramel undertones. Yes, great chocolate is a lot like great wine. Full of character and complexity there for the taking. We capitalize on these great chocolates by utilizing exceptional ingredients like whole Tahitian Vanilla beans, cardamom, cinnamon, honey collected from lavender fields in the South of France, whole fruits like banana, raspberry, figs, and whole fresh herbs like fresh mint leaves.

Meet the Business Owner

Ken K.

Business Owner

As a small child, Ken Kossoudji began assisting his parents and grandparents in their kitchens. His grandparents were both chefs who passed along their passion for the culinary arts. His first chocolates were made alongside his father, a chocolatier, who was the inspiration and catalyst for Dorado Chocolates. During the last 15 years, Ken travelled the globe in search of the finest chocolates, ingredients, foods, wines, and desserts. As Ken tried the best from dozens of countries he began formulating recipes. These experiences are translated into an ever evolving series of chocolates sure to put a smile on your face, no matter your chocolate penchant. Ken combines these experiences with 75 years of family confectionery expertise and his professional training at Paris’ top culinary school with France’s most honored craftsman (M.O.F). These experiences are translated into a unique and broad range of confections.

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20 reviews of Dorado Chocolates

No registration required
Place rating: 5
Grass Valley, CA
Fabulous, high-​end, old-​world confections. The owner trained in Europe and it shows in his sensibilities and how he combines flavors. I’m not crazy about all of them — I’ll never make my peace with green tea, even in a truffle — but the ones I like, I LOVE. Their dark chocolate-​covered orange peel is the best I’ve ever tasted and I send a pound to my sister each year.
They have opened for coffee and chocolate drinks as well, but I don’t drink more than a cup every morning, so I’ve never tried it. Their chocolate drops that you drop into a cup of hot milk and stir for hot chocolate, though, makes a wonderful deeply flavored chocolate. And my anniversary gift each year is a bar of plain dark chocolate, which keeps me happy until next year.
Unfortunately, the shop is now closed. I fear that they were driven out of business by the very popular and also excellent Lazy Dog up the street. I think there’s room for both here in town; LD does the more popular flavors and styles, while Dorado was more adventuresome and sophisticated. But they’re gone. Sob.
Place rating: 5
Citrus Heights, CA
Closed — per website they are taking time off. But chocolate is amazing. Bummer we drove all this way & they weren’t open. :(
Place rating: 5
Sacramento, CA
Dorado’s chocolates are so good and so special that it is hard to find the right words. So I will just say this: I had one bite of their Chai Truffle. I looked at my partner and said, «If you leave me, I will replace you with this.»
Place rating: 5
Emeryville, CA
Came here and after I was all done, made an appointment with my dentist!!! its that good. wow… mind you, I was out the front door with the dog, while my «order» was getting filled. I got to however see, the wonderful display (which I thought was more interesting than the inside of the store) and then taste a bite of dark chocolate. I have only one fault with this place… I want to suggest how they need to figure out how to sell a glass of Zin with a piece of chocolate. The chocolate is that good.
Place rating: 2
Nevada City, CA
The chocolate is very good. The attitude is very bad. We’ve been long time customers and if we didn’t like the chocolate so much, I wouldn’t go back because of the service. I was in recently and the girl behind the counter was very good. We asked the owner one time If we could bring the girl scouts in for a tour of the kitchen and he refused. He was acting like we were going to learn all of his secrets. Strange.
Place rating: 5
Seattle, WA
Quirky fun take on old favorites. Loved the key lime pear chocolate, the tiramisu truffle, and the chili lime chocolate. (and no problems w/​service).
Place rating: 5
Roseville, CA
miscelas!
Stopped by here during a day trip visiting Nevada City and its vicinity. Looking for a placed that offered drinks we came inside the café. It was nicely decorated and the presentation of the chocolates they offered were beautiful. The gal serving behind the counter was helpful and friendly as we ordered two miscelas.
Yummy, yummy mocha miscelas! Perfect cold drink for a hot day! Beautiful presentation of gourmet chocolates of all sorts! Perfect location on Main Street in old town Grass Valley
Place rating: 5
New York, NY
!!! Tahitian Carmel chocolates !!!
handcrafted chocolates
Place rating: 5
Brentwood, CA
I’m not a big chocolate fan, but this place has some great truffles. I recommend picking up more than you planned on, as you’ll most likely end up eating through it too quickly.
Place rating: 4
Los Angeles, CA
Great little artisan chocolate shop on Main Street in Grass Valley. If you’re in the area, you have to try the Jasmine truffle and the Tahitian Caramel with Lavender salt. I’m a huge fan of jasmine and their jasmine truffle is delicious… almost as if you’re breathing in the aromas of blooming jasmine flowers. I wish they would display the pricing for each of the chocolates. It came around to about $ 2.50ish/each.
Place rating: 2
El Dorado Hills, CA
The chocolate was good but the young girl behind the counter had a bad attitude and wasn’t helpful explaining the differences in cost between the chocolates in the display.
Place rating: 2
Auburn, CA
Rude! Came in for an afternoon pick me up and was met with a downer! The young girl behind the counter wouldn’t crack a smile for anything. I asked what a Haute Chocolate was and she looked at me and said, it’s hot chocolate. I had thought maybe there was something special about it, but apparently not. Then when I asked for some chocolate covered pecans in caramel she said I could have the big piece or the small piece. I asked if I could have half of the big piece. She said no. I commented that it was strange and she said, my knife is in the dishwasher… I took the small one, then she rung me up and said nothing else to me, not even thank you. The chocolate was good, but I doubt if I’ll go back.
Place rating: 4
Sacramento, CA
This shop puts up some great chocolate products. The only thing holding me back from 5 stars is the consistently slow and mediocre service staff. I have been here many times and the service always seems slow and not really genuinely helpful, almost as if they are doing you a favour to help you. With their prices up with most of the fine chocolate shops, this really needs to change. Having stopped at Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates in Sacramento in the morning, then Dorado in the late afternoon, the service contrast was very evident and the prices in Sac actually less. You have a great product, now work on great service!
Place rating: 2
Chicago, IL
I think I was partly disappointed by Dorado because I was expecting something along the lines of Vosges chocolates. Dorado has a similar idea: they join chocolate with unexpected ingredients, like ginger or lime or chili or mango, to create interesting culinary combinations. But the execution isn’t quite right. Don’t get me wrong, their chocolates are delicious. But when I tried the ganache with mint and lime, all I could taste was mint, and the mango with chili tasted only a little bit like mango. We bought a box of assorted chocolates for my boyfriend’s dad for Christmas and later, when we tried a few, I honestly had no idea I was eating anything other than regular fancy chocolate. None of the flavors came through.
Still, my guess is that Dorado makes some of the best chocolate in the area, and I would swing by if I were around — and maybe explore some of their other confections.
Place rating: 5
Sausalito, CA
Dark chocolate. What else is there? Not much to me.
What a little treasure in one of my most favorite little towns in California. If you ever find yourself in the gold country, you must take a stroll down the streets of Grass Valley & poke your nose in this place.
I bet you can’t walk out without a goody or three! &, if you are not a connoisseur of the dark chocolate, shame on you, but Dorado has other temptations for people like you, too.
There is even 3-​hour street parking. Now, that’s an incentive right there.
Place rating: 2
Santa Clara, CA
I really can’t understand why they don’t give samples. We probably wouldn’t have bought $ 20 worth of chocolates if they did — maybe that’s why! Yeah, Mr. Counter Man did seem quite bitchy and rudely told me NO when I asked if they had any samples. Most other chocolate places have at least one variety out that they cut into little pieces so people can sample them.

We just ate the passion fruit one and the filling was really good — a nice sharp sweet fruity taste. The chocolate surrounding it was too thick and hard though. I’ll take the passion fruit ones from Chuao chocolates over these ones any day.
Place rating: 4
La Jolla, CA
I’m so impress with this chocolatier and of all places in a small town like Grass Valley. After a delightful afternoon walk I stumble upon this little shop. The dark chocolates was superb. The truffles were a delight.
Place rating: 5
San Mateo, CA
Beautiful interior (yes, this matters to me), delicious hand-​crafted chocolates, decadent specialities, and helpful staff. I got a large hand dipped peppermint patty. It was so suculent and rich that it took two days to finish it off. What a fabulous place in downtown GV!
Place rating: 5
Grass Valley, CA
I Love this place. It is super clean and cute inside. The help was very friendly. The chocolate was very high in quality and they had a nice assortment in flavor. We ordered about ten different types to go and that night, with a little help, tried all of them (strictly for scientific purposes, of course). With the advice of the employee, I ordered the passion fruit truffle. Holy Moly! I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting to like it nearly as much as I did. It bordered on a sexual experience for me. MMMMMM.
They also serve espresso.
Place rating: 5
Nevada City, CA
I just went in here the other day, and I almost forgot how much I love their chocolates. Their chocolates are rich and decadent. When I want to get someone some really nice chocolates I go here and create my own assortment. They have all of the traditional flavors as well as some that are rather unique. I love the Tahitian carmel chocolates. They also started serving drinks. Try their Haute Chocolate.