Gourmet Chocolate Near Me on Marylebone High Street: Pierre Marcolini's Belgian Boutique

Pierre Marcolini's only standalone London boutique stands at 37 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QE, and a Pistachio Praline Tablet from the counter costs £12.90. The Belgian chocolatier opened here in 2015, twenty years after starting his first atelier near Brussels. The shop opens 10am to 6.30pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday. For gourmet chocolate near me in Marylebone, this is the place for Belgian pralines made from beans the company roasts itself.

The company's biography sets out the timeline. Marcolini knew he wanted to be a chocolatier at 14, ran a team of pastry chefs at 19 and, at 31, won the World Patisserie Championship. Belgian by birth with Italian heritage, he opened his first atelier in Kraainem, Belgium, in 1995, and his first boutique followed on the Place du Grand Sablon in Brussels in 1997.

The turning point came in 2001, when a European directive allowed vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate. Marcolini responded by deciding to make his own chocolate from cocoa beans, and by 2009 the company says it controlled the entire production process. Tokyo got a boutique in 2001 and Paris in 2003, before London finally arrived at 37 Marylebone High Street in 2015.

The company says Marcolini travels every year in search of rare cocoa and pays growers a fair price, with a section of the website given over to the planters and plantations it buys from. The cocoa page also walks through what happens before the beans reach Belgium: pods are harvested twice a year, in spring and autumn, then the beans ferment for four to seven days in containers covered with banana leaves before drying in the sun.

Fermentation is where the flavour is set, the company explains, and stopping it at the right moment decides how the finished chocolate tastes. Back in Belgium, the beans are stored in jute sacks of 60 to 70kg beside the workshop until roasting. None of this happens on Marylebone High Street, but it explains why the shop talks about origins the way a wine merchant talks about vineyards.

Start with the Pistachio Praline Tablet at £12.90, the bar the website currently places at the top of its basket suggestions. The 5 Petits Bonheurs box of hazelnut praline pieces from the permanent collection costs £9 and makes a neat introduction to the house praline style. For something richer, the Plumier box of salted caramel truffles costs £26.

The marshmallow pandas are the most photographed item: chocolate-coated marshmallow shaped like a panda, sold singly for £4.90 in dark, milk or white, or as a Trio of Marshmallow Pandas for £13.90. They are fun for children but not the best use of a first visit; the pralines show off the bean-to-bar work far better than a marshmallow under a thin chocolate shell.

This year the company has added cooking chocolate in named blends, and they are an unusual reason to stop in. Each box costs £8.75, with dark and milk options called African Bloom, Congo Myst, Peru Whisper, Silk Reverie, Midnight Smoke and Intens Ember. For anyone who bakes, a box of single-origin cooking chocolate is a more useful souvenir than a gift box, and it does not need careful handling on the way home.

The 2026 advent calendar is already on sale online at £55, and the website runs free standard delivery on orders from £59. If you are flying home, carry pralines in hand luggage rather than a suitcase; tablets and cooking chocolate survive the hold far better than filled pieces.

Marylebone is the brand's only standalone London boutique with its own story behind it, but Pierre Marcolini also sells at Harrods, at Selfridges, on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill and on Regent Street. Selfridges stays open until 10pm Monday to Saturday, which makes it the fallback if you miss the 6.30pm closing in Marylebone. The Notting Hill shop at 97 Westbourne Grove is closed on Mondays.

The other hours differ enough to plan around. The Harrods counter opens 10am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and noon to 6pm on Sunday, while the Regent Street shop at number 56 opens 11am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and noon to 6pm on Sunday. The Westbourne Grove shop opens earliest on Saturday, at 9am, which suits a morning walk to Portobello Road.

If you want British rather than Belgian chocolate, Rococo's shop is around the corner on Moxon Street, so it is easy to taste both in one visit. Buy the praline tablet here, then compare it with a bar of English-style dark chocolate there. Going on a Sunday means a shorter day, since the Marcolini boutique opens at 11am and closes at 5pm.

Marylebone High Street runs north to south between Marylebone Road and Wigmore Street, with Daunt Books, an Edwardian bookshop known for its long oak galleries and travel section, a short walk along the street at number 83. Paddington Street Gardens, a small public garden just off the High Street, is a quiet place to open the box before you carry it further.

Baker Street and Regent's Park stations are both within about ten minutes of the shop, and Bond Street station is a little further south. A gentle afternoon route runs from Regent's Park down the High Street to Pierre Marcolini, then on to Wigmore Street and the Wallace Collection on Manchester Square.

Address: Pierre Marcolini, 37 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4QE. Hours: Monday to Saturday 10am to 6.30pm, Sunday 11am to 5pm. Other London counters: Harrods, 87-135 Brompton Road; Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street; 97 Westbourne Grove, closed Mondays; and 56 Regent Street. Nearest Underground stations are Baker Street, Regent's Park and Bond Street.