Gourmet Chocolate Near Me on Orchard Road: Janice Wong at Paragon

Janice Wong's kiosk at Paragon, 290 Orchard Road, #B1-K28, Singapore 238859, sells nine hand-painted bonbons for S$39 and jars of edible chocolate paint for S$12. It opens 10am to 9.30pm every day, on the mall's basement level. Anyone typing gourmet chocolate near me on Orchard Road will find here the work of a chef twice named Asia's Best Pastry Chef, at prices closer to a nice coffee and cake than a hotel dessert.

Janice Wong is Singapore-born and, by her own account, came to cooking by chance after a farm trip in Melbourne. She later learned from Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, the Spanish chocolatier Oriol Balaguer and Pierre Hermé. In 2007 she opened 2am:dessertbar in Holland Village, the late-night dessert restaurant that made her name, and in 2014 she set up Janice Wong Pure Imagination to sell chocolates, cakes and ice cream.

San Pellegrino's Asia's 50 Best named her Asia's Best Pastry Chef in 2013 and again in 2014, and the World Gourmet Summit gave her its Pastry Chef of the Year title in 2011, 2013 and 2015. The brand has since spread to Sydney, Macau and Korea, and she has staged edible art installations abroad. Paragon is one of the Singapore shops where that edible-art idea is boiled down into a box you can carry.

The Bon Bon Box of 9 at S$39 is the chef's pick from her Singapore Signature and Vegan Series, so each box doubles as a tasting of local flavours. Expect gula melaka and pandan, chilli padi, laksa leaf, kopi and teh alongside pralines, yuzu and hojicha. The bonbons are painted in bright colours, which is the point of buying them here rather than at an airport counter.

For a larger gift, the Bon Bon Box of 16 costs S$72, and the online shop lets you customise a box rather than accept the chef's selection. A box of 16 Christmas Trinkets bonbons is the same price. Because the pieces are fresh bonbons rather than solid bars, buy them near the end of a trip, not the start, and keep them out of the afternoon heat; the brand's bars, by contrast, carry an expiry of up to three months.

Chocolate paint is the item visitors remember. Each 100g jar costs S$12 and comes in white dulce, yellow passionfruit, orange, blue peppermint, pink strawberry and green mango. You warm the jar in a microwave for 15 seconds at a time, stir and repeat up to three times, then brush it onto cakes, fruit or plates. It is more playful than practical, so treat it as a gift for someone who bakes rather than a snack.

The single-origin bars are 40g and cost S$12 each. The 49% Indonesia Laksa Leaf Lemongrass Milk Chocolate and the 70% Indonesia Single Origin Chai Dark Chocolate both use Sumba beans of Criollo and Trinitario hybrids roasted at 120°C. The chai bar lists cinnamon, clove, cardamom and ginger. These are the purchases to choose if you care more about the cacao than the colours.

Singapore Icons in Chocolate costs S$55 and recasts five landmarks as sculpted pieces with their own flavours: Jewel Changi Airport in pistachio, a Peranakan house in cashew praline, the ArtScience Museum in hazelnut and a Supertree in kaffir lime caramel, with the Esplanade completing the set. It is the gift for someone abroad who has visited Singapore, and too pretty to eat on the bus home.

Seasonal boxes rotate quickly. A Christmas Trinkets box of nine bauble-painted bonbons, also S$39, is on the site now for collection from 1 November, with flavours such as Earl Grey lavender, espresso gingerbread and salted honey. New this month are Chai Spiced Candied Orange White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies at S$22 a box. If you only want one thing, skip the seasonal cookies and buy bonbons, which are the brand's core craft.

The tasting workshop happens at 2am:dessertbar, 21A Lorong Liput in Holland Village, not at Paragon. The Chocolate Tasting Workshop costs S$90 and walks through Janice Wong's Pure Bean to Bar range from raw bean to finished bar. A Chocolate Bar Painting Workshop at the same address costs S$45. The dessert bar itself opens Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 2am, so book a workshop and stay for plated desserts afterwards.

Paragon is the easiest of the shops to reach on a shopping day. Republic Plaza, 9 Raffles Place, #01-06, opens only Monday to Friday, 10am to 7pm, for office workers in the CBD. The café at the Supertree Observatory in Gardens by the Bay, #03-01, opens 9am to 9pm but needs an Observatory ticket to reach.

The kiosk keeps the same hours seven days a week, so a weekday evening before the 9.30pm close is an easy slot to choose a box without a weekend shopping crowd around you. For a second chocolate stop on the same street, the Hokkaido brand Royce' has a counter at ION Orchard, #B4-10, open 10am to 9.30pm, a short walk west along Orchard Road.

Address: Paragon, 290 Orchard Road, #B1-K28, Singapore 238859. Hours: daily 10am to 9.30pm. Prices: Bon Bon Box of 9 S$39, Singapore Signature Series Box of 5 S$26, chocolate paint jar S$12, 40g single-origin bar S$12, Singapore Icons in Chocolate S$55. Workshops run at 2am:dessertbar, 21A Lorong Liput, from S$45. The Republic Plaza shop in Raffles Place closes at weekends.