There’s a sweet little surprise waiting for you on Broome Street in Soho!

Tucked away under the city’s steel scaffolding, there’s a most divine chocolate shop called MarieBelle, and they’ve gone all out to make it feel as though the front door is a portal to a magical world.

Inside the shop, the walls are a dreamy blue color that matches the shop’s signature chocolate packaging. Gilded frames showcase paintings of Pre-Raphaelite women who look like they love to do two things: sniff roses and eat chocolate. And crystal chandeliers and other drippy crystal decor create the sparkle that truly brings the romance of the shop to life.

The shop is a great place to pick up gifts. They have beautifully packaged chocolate bars and hot chocolate mixes and anything else the true chocolate fanatic could possibly desire.

But the chocolate shop itself is not the true jewel. That’s in the back where the shop boasts a luxurious little cacao bar. If you have a proper reservation, which you should make well ahead on Open Table, you can sit at one of the ten or so tea tables in your gold Chiavari chair as the lovely staff treats you to an afternoon snack fit for a princess.

The menu in the cacao bar is surprisingly diverse.

You can cash in your 401K if you want to have the pricey $70 Afternoon Tea, complete with soup, pastries, macarons, finger sandwiches, scones, and, of course, tea. We visited late in the afternoon, so we opted to share a small plate of the finger sandwiches at a more palatable $26. A small shared plate gave us each five little sandwiches, the perfect afternoon portion.

The real manna, though, was the white hot chocolate, which was thick and creamy and sweet. After I had drained my tiny porcelain cup and began running my tiny silver spoon over the bottom of the cup to try and draw up one more sip, I felt a little like C.S. Lewis’s greedy Edmund when he becomes addicted to the White Queen’s Turkish Delight.

Yeah. I’d sell my siblings out for another cup. It’s that magical.

The shop is open from 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. on Monday – Thursday and until 8:00 p.m. on Friday – Sunday.

Visit their website at https://mariebelle.com for more information.