Gallery: Cecilia Tessieri on Passion, Mastering Chocolate, and Her First Shop in NYC

Amedei founder Cecilia Tessieri inside the first standalone New York shop, near Union Square.

Outside of the shop; a sign encourages hot chocolate drinking.

This 70% dark chocolate bar blends Trinitario and Criollo beans; the flavor is the first Amedei chocolate ever made.

This bar is made with white milk chocolate and pistachios from Bronte.

The Porcelana has been called the world's most expensive chocolate; a bar costs $16.50. It's 70% cocoa bittersweet dark chocolate, made from the prized Criollo bean found in Venezuela. Amedei produces 20,000 bars a year, and each is numbered on the packaging—this one is No. 17,480.

Each of these packages has four individually wrapped chocolates made with single-origin cocoa from Grenada, Jamaica, Madagascar, Trinidad, and Venezuela.

The pint-sized shop showcases 14 types of pralines.

A selection of pralines, from left: Mokita (cappuccino), Supremo (coffee), Desiderio (pistachio, marzipan), Vin Santo (Italian dessert wine), Tartufo (hazelnut, almond), Delizioso (hazelnut cream), and Amor (macaroon)

The shop also sells Crema Toscana chocolate-and-hazelnut spreads, one with a more pronounced hazelnut flavor, the other with a richer chocolate flavor. Both are made with hazelnuts roasted in house.