We were in the Washington DC area and were lucky enough to have dinner with one of my husband’s high school friends and his delightful wife. They drove in the city traffic about an hour to meet us in a little town called Occoquan for dinner at The Secret Garden Cafe.

The conversation was lively, but I fear we spent too much time talking about our travels. Regardless, it is always fun catching up with old friends and seeing them was the highlight of the trip. Indeed, it was the main reason we veered our travel plan toward the D.C area in the first place.

However, second only to the company of friends was an unexpected treat of discovering a local chocolatier called Potomac Chocolate, only a few doors down from our restaurant. (We were wandering in search of ice cream for dessert!)

I am a sucker for dark chocolate. I have at least a little bit every day, my most frequently treat being Ghirardelli’s chocolate chips. They’re my go-to partly because they’re easy to find in almost any grocery and partly because they were one of the safer brands in the 2023 Consumer Reports study on heavy metals.

To my delight, Potomac had a variety of single-source dark chocolates with descriptions that read like fine wine.

There were so many choices!

At the end of the day, I picked these three and the Duarte is my favorite.