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One thing that is super popular in Bruges, Belgium is The Old Chocolate House. You will see chocolate at almost every corner you turn in this adorable city. Even if you aren’t a huge chocolate fan (like us), The Old Chocolate House is an experience you don’t want to miss. Plus, they have more than just chocolate on their menu.

The Old Chocolate House is a family-owned shop and cafe offering homemade hot chocolate, various desserts, tea, and coffee. If you want to have some real hot chocolate, this is definitely the place to get it. The chocolate store is located downstairs and the charming tearoom is located upstairs and this is where you will unwind and whisk away your very own steaming cup of hot chocolate.

Walking to The Old Chocolate House in Bruges

We were looking forward to making our very own fresh cup of hot chocolate, so we made it a point to arrive as soon as they opened for business at 10AM. The chocolate shop downstairs was open for business, but to our disappointment, the tearoom was not opening until 11AM.

Side note: Stores not opening on time was quite common in Bruges while we were there in October.

We asked the woman working the register at the chocolate shop why they were opening the tearoom later and she informed us that they were short-staffed, so had to open a little later.

Since we usually have an itinerary of things to do, this was somewhat of an inconvenience, but there isn’t much to do in this situation so we walked around and took some pictures and also checked out another chocolate shop called the Chocolate Brothers.

This chocolate store was closed as well, but you can watch one of the workers making chocolate from scratch and also check out their awesome chocolate creations in their window display.

The awesome chocolate creations at Chocolate Brothers

When we arrived at The Chocolate House an hour later, to our surprise, the tearoom was nearly at full capacity! It seemed that they had been open for some time as the cafe was jam-packed. We were lucky and actually snagged the last remaining table before a waitlist began. Whew! We were both happy that we secured the last table, but at the same time, a bit annoyed at the situation. Nonetheless, we had a cute little table by the window that we were very pleased with and the space and decor was quite charming.

Once we nestled into our cozy little corner, we glanced over at our neighboring tables to see what other guests were ordering. The space is pretty compact so your eyes don’t have to wander too far to see what everyone else was indulging in. Of course, it was no surprise to see that almost every table had a hot cup of steaming milk and chocolate in front of them. That’s exactly what we wanted, but it wasn’t as simple as we thought. The menu was quite extensive and there were a variety of different flavors to select from.

We ordered delicious chocolate and waffles at The Chocolate House

We both decided to share the house special called: Winnie the Pooh. The mugs are massive so we knew there was plenty for us to share. Winnie the Pooh was both adorable and a clever name and it definitely matched the presentation. It came with a raw honeycomb, spices, a cinnamon stick and of course, chocolate. The chocolate came in circle chunks in a cute chocolate cup that was also edible.

You can basically dump the entire chocolate cup in the steaming milk or drop it in little by little as we did. It was such a fun experience whisking the chocolate and watching it slowly melt into the hot milk. The Winnie the Pooh was sweet, as expected, but also had some kick to it with the spice. The chocolate was rich and it’s definitely a lot tastier than the basic powered hot chocolate you’d normally get. Crystal accidentally ate the dried chili pepper and had a burning hot mouth for a little while, so be careful not to do that!

We were not expecting this cute chocolate presentation for our hot chocolate

While Crystal was trying to cool down from the hot pepper, we also ordered a plate of waffles here. It was their homemade “grandma’s recipe” waffles, so we couldn’t pass it up. The homemade waffles paired well with our hot chocolate, but it wasn’t as tasty as some of the other waffles we had in town. We would suggest skipping the calories here and stand in line for a waffle from Chez Albert instead.

Winnie the Pooh chocolate mix for our hot chocolate

So much fun making our own hot chocolate

The service was welcoming, friendly, and swift. We left with a pleasant experience despite the little mishap in the beginning. We think it’s definitely worth ditching your diet (for the day) to enjoy this chocolate heaven. When you head back downstairs to exit, you should check out their adorable chocolate shop.

If you are a huge chocolate fan, here are some of our other suggestions for an ultimate chocolate experience in Bruges:

You must visit The Chocolate Line. The Chocolate Line is honored worldwide as "number 1 in the world" for their chocolate. We stopped by on our last day in Bruges and bought a handful of chocolate souvenirs here.
Take part in a chocolate-making class. We wish we had time to participate in the 2.5 hour Bruges Chocolate Workshop as it has raving reviews and who wouldn’t want to make their own delicious Belgian chocolates from scratch?