Hanna's Chocolates produces artisanal, hand-crafted confections with the highest quality ingredients available. The company’s mission is to make people's lives a little bit sweeter with chocolate, according to General Manager Tarek Sultani, who is married to the company’s chef and namesake Hanna Jueng-Sultani. This investment in quality includes fresh cream, imported French purees, European butter, and chocolate from high-end brands, such as Valrhona, Felchin, and Cacao Barry.

The shop also makes delicious handmade chocolate bars in several flavors, a variety of macarons, and unique candy bars. Hanna’s Chocolates often creates custom flavors or color schemes for special events. It has also become known for a chocolate treat from the Middle East that became popular on social media and led to local TV coverage for Hanna’s Chocolates.

“Hanna recently started doing the viral Dubai Bar but it is no gimmick,” says Sultani about what the shop calls the Pistachio Kanafeh Bar, which must be ordered in advance. “She is bringing the same standards of excellence and quality to this bar as she does to all her products, and it has gone viral for a reason. It is gooey, delicious, crunchy, and exotic all at the same time. We only have a limited quantity, and they sell out fairly quickly.”

The team at Hanna’s Chocolates try to go the extra mile for customers, according to Sultani. He says the shop has done many creative projects for clients. They include developing custom color schemes to match weddings and baby showers as well as putting together unique and delicious gift packages on request. Recently the company collaborated with a high-end wine brand to create a custom bon bon flavor for the brand. The flavor included a new wine from the brand as an ingredient. Paired with the delicious wine, the bon bons truly showcased the wine’s depth of flavor, he says.

“Making chocolate is a challenging and demanding process,” notes Sultani. “I liken it to a ballerina on stage, where all the audience sees is the beautiful and elegant performance. They don't see the hours and hours of laborious practice, late nights, calluses, and broken toes. Our bon bons require a multistage process that takes three days. If any stage is not perfect, we need to scrap them and start all over. They are truly a labor of love.”

Hanna’s Chocolates recently celebrated its first anniversary. All of its products are made by hand in its kitchen behind the storefront at 4825 Hopyard Road. The couple loved Hacienda and thought it was the perfect place to realize the chef’s long-time dream of owning her own shop. “We thought it would be an ideal community for establishing roots and allowing her to pursue her passion for chocolate,” says Sultani.

The winter holidays tend to be the shop’s busiest time of the year. Sultani encourages those considering ordering holiday gifts from Hanna’s Chocolates to provide as much notice as possible, so the company can best ensure availability.

“Our goal is to give everyone a five-star experience every time to the best of our ability,” he notes. “We want to become a fixture in the community, a place where people feel comfortable and happy.”

For more information about Hanna’s Chocolates, please visit www.hannaschocolates.com, www.facebook.com/hannaschocolates, or www.instagram.com/hannaschocolates.