City Bakery Begins 20th Annual Hot Chocolate Festival

Midtown, NEW YORK– Wednesday morning, Feb. 1, The City Bakery launched its 20th annual Hot Chocolate Festival. A unique flavor of hot chocolate will be served each day of the month of February, many of which will not be available for the rest of the year.  Flavors range from reasonable tastes like Milk Chocolate hot chocolate (served Feb. 9) to more unexpected creations like Honduran, Earl Gray Tea and Bourbon hot chocolate.

Annie-Jane Clark (’12) hopes to go to the festival for her fourth year in a row.  Her past favorite flavors include Ginger, Lemon, What Would Faulkner Drink and Espresso.  She plans to branch out this year with Banana Peal hot chocolate, a specialty flavor it offers every year, and Leap Year hot chocolate, a flavor it only offers on--you guessed it--leap year.

“It’s really expensive, so I’ll go [pausing] seven times," Annie-Jane said. "Unless I can find others to split cups with.”

“Expensive” translates to five dollars for a large cup and two dollars for a “sampler.”  But this pricing may not be entirely unreasonable if New York Magazine is accurate in saying that “what Katz’s is to pastrami ... City Bakery is to hot chocolate.”

The City Bakery is located at 3 W 18th St, which is just a short walk from Union Square. They are open Sunday 10am-6pm, Monday-Friday 7:30am-7pm and Saturday 8am-7pm.