Why, Nigella in all her busty wonder was at it with melted Lindt just this week! The minx...
I know that, and you know that but you should pop that information along to the TV chefs in the UK who always advocate Lindt 60 or 70% cocoa for any desserts using chocolate. Tell them it's also good for scoffing straight from the fridge, too.
Valrhona is a usual chef's choice for cooking chocolate. Lindt is big and corporate. Great quality for cooking and eating but they're more worried about protecting their good name than taking risks and experimenting with new flavours and trickery. Oh well. Also I hate Nigella. That is all.
For plain black nomilk chocolate only:
I wouldn't like to kill illusions, but high cocoa does not always mean good chocolate. The quality of the fat is very important. There are two main school for good chocolate: only cocoa butter fans and adding cleared butter fans. Many Swiss chocolate brans for supermarkets are adding cleared butter fans. The difference you notice between Lindt and Merkur is partially due to that difference.
Another element of taste is sugar. High cocoa, lots of sugar and less fat makes a very different chocolate from high cocoa, less sugar and more fat. With the same cocoa %, you can get quite different stuff.
For the junkies like me, there is also the difference in the cocoa origine itself. African beans are the less delicate, but can be strong, so powerful taste even in a 60% cocoa is not rare. A 70% madagascar can be very schocky but less aggressive.
On the top of that, people may be used to vaniline and miss it in cocoa-only chocolate. Or the wage of vanilin/vanilla is not the same from brand to brand.
For Milk chocolate:
All of the above plus the kind of mild product added. A friend of mine swears powder milk makes bad chocolate. I don't have any opinion, but I am pretty sure milk is mainely added as powder mild to chocolate. Who knows better about mild chocolate?
For a low-price product, Choceur Framboise bars (dark choc, 55% cocoa butter, with raspberry bits; in black packaging) are very good. Also the orange and cassis flavours. These you can find in Aldi. The Moser Roth ones are not bad, too.
My favourite dark choc is from Lindt but they tend to melt once they get to a warm country.
For lux stuff, I get choc truffles from Sprungli, Von Rotz and Aeschbach shops.
(For variety, throw in some Kinder Bueno, the classic one. They are very delicious.)
I can see you live in Lausanne. If that's correct then I would suggest to pay a visit to Blondel at Rue de Bourg 5 (at Place St-Francois). Really good tasting and nice looking chocolate, and I know several swiss people who are buying it as christmas presents... Personnally I would go for a mixed variety of Villars though - loooove it
www.chocolat-tristan.ch
You can visit the Cailler factory in Broc near Bulle/Gruyères.
www.chocolat-tristan.ch
You can visit the Cailler factory in Broc near Bulle/Gruyères.
Chocolat Jacot in Fleurier (NE) make very nice Absinthe chocolates.
I Think there are better Swiss "sweets" then choclate:
Luxemburger (and more from sprüngli); Basler Leckerli for example