It’s one of the festive season’s toughest questions: which supermarket-bought box of chocolates should you bring to the coffee table? Our panel argues the case for 10 top contenders.

Nothing says Christmas like hastily throwing an extra box of chocolates or two into your trolley for those people you treasure so dearly that you forgot about them entirely. It might be a dusty box of discount liqueurs that may or may not get granddad drunk, or a cursed cavalcade of terrible Roses for your office nemesis, or some of those Guylian seashells for your celebrity crush, Smeagol the gravel maggot. While all respectable options, these pale in comparison to what our panel of experts have decided, through rigorous years of testing, are the very best Christmas chocolates on the market. Here are their findings. 

Quality Street 

If you mourn the days when Roses were still good and a box of Continental was the height of chocolate sophistication, Quality Street has got you covered. These treats of British origin used to come in a tin but now come in a plastic tub – I like the lack of pretense and full embrace of gluttony here. The tub serves you a monster 64 chocolates in 11 flavours, none of which are Fjordland moss and bergamot. Six of the 11 flavours all exist within the choc box wheelhouse of perfection – milk chocolate, praline, fudge and caramel. There’s a toffee bar reminiscent of a Whittakers toffee milk, a strawberry delight that’s as close to the old Roses strawberry chocolate as we’re going to get and not one but two orange chocolate offerings. The only random inclusion is the toffee penny. It’s not a chocolate, but I’ve scoffed far worse. Quality Street was also the brainchild of Mr Mackintosh, of Mackintosh’s toffee fame, so I’ll allow one concession here. / Anna Rawhiti-Connell

Toblerone

Big sorry to all the other chocolates but this is no contest. The Toblerone towers above its rivals like the Matterhorn – the very same Matterhorn said to have inspired Swiss chocolatier Theodor Tobler’s triangular creation in 1908. Is there a better Christmas sight than that triangle poking out of a stocking or wrapped conspicuously under the tree? No there isn’t. The peerless Swiss chocolate. The honey-nougat encased within. The way each exquisite pyramid snaps off in the mouth. And the specialness. Unless you’re some kind of monstrous child prince, Toblerones aren’t for everyday snacking. They’re strictly for birthdays, for random romantic duty-free purchase and, most of all, for Christmas. Bonus trivia: as you chomp down on a tiny chocolate alp in a few days’ time, check out the logo, and the bear baked into the mountain. / Toby Manhire

Celebrations 

A wildcard of the Christmas chocolate genre. Every single one of the Celebrations chocolates is available in some form year-round and yet, when packaged up small and delivered in a bright red tub, they become the most festive snack of the year. Celebrations brings together all your Mars (the brand) bars: Snickers, Bounty, Milky Way, Mars (the bar), Maltesers and the delightful and rarely seen Galaxy chocolate. There’s something for everyone and the tiny portions make it perfect for branching out and trying a new flavour without committing to a full novelty bar. Milky Bar is underrated and the Galaxy chocolates inexplicably taste a bit like Guylian seashells despite not involving praline. Settling in for a movie with a Celebrations tub on your lap will be the highlight of your Christmas. / Madeleine Chapman

Scorched Almonds

Some ads impact you on a cellular level, their memory instantly evoking palpable feelings of fear (the one where that guy throws his nephew at the ceiling fan), unease (3B cream crying arse cheeks) and longing (Robert Pattinson krumping for Dior). But no advertising campaign has made me salivate quite like the one where the little girl buys a box of Scorched Almonds and individually wraps each individual chocolatey morsel for her entire family. Oh what I would give to receive a delightful bundle of Scorchies for Christmas. I love how insanely shiny they are. I love how insanely hard they are. I love how they put up a massive fight for ages and then reveal their delicious, hearty, healthy (?) nutty centre. Imagine Viva la Scorchies! / Alex Casey

Ferrero Rocher

There’s something special about the first crunch of a Ferrero Rocher. The thin wafer coating giving way to the gooey centre. It is simply a perfect choccie. While there’s nothing explicitly Christmas-y about a Ferrero Rocher, to me it will always be a uniquely festive chocolate. That’s because the only time I can justify splashing out so much money for so few chocolates is around Christmas time. What can I say, it’s the silly season. / Stewart Sowman-Lund

Lindt Lindor Assorted Chocolates 

Honestly, it should cost more money to feel this fancy. Look at the fonts on the packet, look at the subtle gold details. Look at the floral decals! There’s no a single dud flavour in the bunch, and you can quite easily make your way through the 123 grams of chocolate, in their little foil wrappers, in a single sitting if you don’t feel like sharing. And if I’m being honest, I’ve never in my life felt like sharing my Lindt, but I will graciously share my opinion about them: they’re bloody great. / Sam Brooks

After Eight

There are a lot of chocolates that taste nice and feel fun to eat and share, but are held back from greatness by the ambiguity around when is the appropriate time to eat them. Roses for Breakfast? Toblerone for tea? It’s all a bit too confusing for most people. After Eights have cracked this problem by claiming their place as the only brand to specifically commit to a focus on time of consumption right there in the name. No confusion here, just deliciousness. Now? No, after eight. Thank you. (Don’t even get me started on how classy and tasteful the little black envelope is! The height of style and sophistication!) / Toby Morris 

Terry’s Chocolate Orange

Who is Terry? A bloody genius, that’s who. Terry’s Chocolate Orange is the true Christmas chocolate, a glorious globe of citrusy goodness that only appears during the festive season, unlike those common little Scorched Almonds or snooty After Eights. Terry has gifted the world an elegant palate cleanser and a complex puzzle, because once you remove the sticker (a sticker! Is there no end of fancy?) and unwrap the sunset-coloured foil, you’ll discover a circular Tetris puzzle of perfectly formed chocolate segments inside. Take one segment and wrap the orange back up as if it never happened (handy if you have the misfortune of living in a house where eating chocolate for breakfast is frowned upon), or hoover the whole thing in one sitting (as an orange, you are legally entitled to include this in your 5+ a day). Merry Christmas, from both Terry and myself. / Tara Ward

 

Raffaello

With its chintzy packaging and Italian renaissance-sounding name, everything about Raffaello gives off the vibe that they’re steeped in an expansive and coloured history. Whereas in fact the inverse is true: the remarkably airy coconut, white milk cream and almond globes were actually invented in the not-quite-so-distant 1990s. And although there may be a bewildering array of Christmas chocolates on the shelves nowadays, these snowball-like morsels are without a doubt the cream of the crop. The real beauty of them lies in how stupidly underrated they are despite probably being one of the most transcendental chocolates you’ll find – at the supermarket at least. Take a chance on these. / Charlotte Muru-Lanning

Cadbury Favourites

No selection of miniature chocolates is more taken-for-granted by New Zealanders than the honest, hard-working Cadbury Favourites. Forget everything you know about choc and consider this box with fresh eyes – it really is an embarrassment of bite-sized riches, home to some of the finest confectionery ever invented. It’s also contributed more to the festive discourse than the rest of this list put together, facilitating countless Christmas conversations via its mix of classics (Moro, Flake, Crunchie) and more controversial elements (Cherry Ripe, Turkish Delight, Dream). No New Zealander is too good for a box of Favourites – if they’d been around in 1953, you know the path to Everest’s summit would have been littered with little Moro Gold wrappers. / Calum Henderson