Nunu Chocolates
529 Atlantic Avenue
917-776-7102
In Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, kids can peek through a glass window into a small kitchen where Justine Pringle, one of Nunu's co-owners, makes fancy chocolates by hand. She uses a single origin cocoa bean from a sustainable and family run farm in Colombia and her chocolates can be purchased by the piece or in small boxes. Kids will love the golden soft butterflies filled with caramel, chocolate-covered graham crackers and frozen hot chocolate. Adults will appreciate the nice selection of beer, wine and coffee.

Mast Brothers Chocolate
105A North 3rd Street
718-388-2625
At Mast Brothers in Williamsburg, brothers Rick and Michael use cacao beans from Madagascar, the Dominican Republic and the Venezuelan Caribbean coast at the city's only bean-to-bar chocolate shop. They offer tours every Saturday and Sunday at 1pm where visitors can see the entire chocolate-making process, from the sifting of cacao beans (the 150-pound bags can produce 500 bars of chocolate!), to the finished product. If you or your kids have never seen a cacao bean before, at Mast you can touch them, crack them, and see them roasted. The tours costs $9.99 per person (kids under 3 are free), but it runs for about an hour, is information-dense and might be better suited for older children. It wraps up with a sampling of five different kinds of chocolate and lets visitors see first-hand how each bean creates a different flavor.

Aigner Chocolate
103-02 Metropolitan Ave
718-544-1850
Opened in 1930, this Forest Hills chocolate shop was taken over by Austrian immigrant John Aigner in 1960. His grandson Chris now runs the family business that focuses on Austrian-style chocolates and more modern treats. Unfortunately, the layout of Aigner's building made it logistically difficult to let visitors watch their chocolate production up close.  But you can check their Facebook page for behind the scenes photos and then head to Queens for chocolate covered marshmallows, oreos, pretzels and gummy bears. If you have any questions, you can ask the Aigners themselves—Chris, his Dad and Mom are in the shop almost every day.

Papabubble
380 Broome Street (near Mulberry Street)
212-966-2599
If your kids are more interested in candy than chocolate, take them to Papabubble on the Lower East Side. A high-end candy shop that began in Barcelona, Papabubble now has locations around the world and is known for its sophisticated sweets and adventurous flavors. Watch and learn about the creation of candy in a minimalist and lab-like setting and be sure to take home a bag of hard candies tattooed with the name of your favorite borough. The 'tattoo' is actually the result of an incredibly intensive process thay you can watch happen, and the letters go all the way through the candy. This alone is worth the trip.

Jacques Torres
Greenwich Village: 350 Hudson Street (at King Street)
Upper West Side: 285 Amsterdam Ave (between 73rd and 74th Streets)
Dumbo: 66 Water Street
212-414-2462
Jacques Torres is New York's Mr. Chocolate and his four shops will make cacao-loving kids and adults giddy with their dizzying selection of treats. In Dumbo and SoHo, visitors can watch chocolate being made, while his Chelsea Market and Upper West Side locations are retail only. They're all great places to pick up a bar of chocolate, customize a box for yourself or someone special, and their hot chocolate might just be one of the richest and most decadent in the city.