MANCHESTER, NH – Luxury Travel Guide has named Dancing Lion Chocolate as Confectionery Store of the Year for 2024/2025. The small but mighty chocolate shop on Elm Street rose to the top from among 90,000 submissions globally, due to the artistry and expertise of Master Chocolatier Richard Tango-Lowy, New Hampshire’s own SBA’s (Small Business Administration) District Director awardee for 2024.
“It’s pretty cool because it spans across multiple economic sectors- especially in the field of hospitality, which means that Dancing Lion Chocolate is contributing to the blossoming tourism economy here in Manchester,” says Yasamin Safarzadeh, a Dancing Lion employee since 2019.
Safarzadeh and Tango-Lowy sat recently in the sorting station inside the shop drafting the tag line for the global announcement of the award. The two bicker back and forth around internal rhyme schemes and connotation, finally agreeing to the following opener being published in this season’s Luxury Travel Guide Magazine;
"At the heart of the working city of Manchester, New Hampshire, in the United States, you'll find a tiny shop that crafts truffles, bonbons, bars, and confections from some of the rarest chocolate in the world. Dancing Lion Chocolate sources heirloom and fine flavor cacao—often directly from small farms—roasting and grinding the beans to make the chocolate for their products. Recipes are ephemeral; the staff rarely creates more than 100 of a truffle or bonbon and only 36 of a chocolate bar before moving on to something new. Each piece is a blend of science and art; a labor of love, packaged with poetry.”
The team at Dancing Lion Chocolate does a heck of a lot more than merely chocolate and writing. In 2022, they published a thorough analysis of cumulative findings on ‘Geological and Early Human Influences on Cacao Flavor,’ through the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund.
Dancing Lion has arrived here through the vigors of scientific research and the relentless pursuit of an intentional practice, one which upholds the values of preserving exceptional qualities and flavors in chocolate. In 2025 the crew readies itself for being the world’s only chocolate couverture—chocolate for professional chocolatiers—that specializes in rare heirloom-designated chocolates.
The team has been in relentless strategic planning sessions, boards covered in chalk in the far back rooms, excavating the depths and breadth of scaling DL.
You’ll have to sit tight and wait to glean what’s next for Manchester’s favorite fine chocolate shop, but for now you can rest assured that they will always try to surprise and delight each person who walks through the door, makes a call to the shop or sends an inquiry through email. There is no shortage to the innovation and the flavor sensations which the Dancing Lion Chocolate team achieves on the daily.
Richard Tango-Lowy, right, with cacao grower Volker Lehmann at Northwest Chocolate Festival.