The Chocolate Sanctuary in Gurnee: Making Dining a Chocolate Experience

The Chocolate Sanctuary in Gurnee: Making Dining a Chocolate Experience

The Chocolate Sanctuary in Gurnee, Illinois has been on my chocolate radar for awhile. Finally, we had a free afternoon for a little winter adventure. The Chocolate Sanctuary is quite the experience for chocolate lovers with chocolate being infused into many of the dishes. Of course, the foodie adventure also can include a large variety of chocolate desserts, drinks, truffles and more should you choose.

Chocolate rolls and chocolate butter! Sign us up!

At first, I was unsure if our initial visit should be for lunch, dinner, tea or dessert. During our exploration, I felt that lunch was the perfect choice for the particular day of our visit. While we perused the menu, we received rolls including chocolate rolls (of course!) with whipped chocolate butter. We had two menus to choose from for our lunch -- an a la carte menu and a prix fixe. For the prix fixe, you receive your choice of soup, salad or appetizer, entree and a token for a truffle. My husband and I both chose the prix fixe. My daughter went with an a la carte Caesar Salad. We did have a little chuckle at the fact that we were at a chocolate inspired restaurant and my daughter is the only one that did not order an item with chocolate in it. The salad was exactly what she wanted -- so perfect!

Caesar Salad at The Chocolate Sanctuary.

Tea Time:

I really took my time reading the menu and almost forgot to order myself a pot of loose leaf tea. I, know, how is that possible? The Chocolate Sanctuary has a nice selection of loose leaf tea. I quite enjoyed sipping a green and white tea blend. Doesn't the pot of tea and accessories look amazing?

Piping hot pot of loose leaf tea.

Enjoying the Incredible Value of Prix Fixe Lunch:

My husband and I received all portions of our meals at the same time. I ordered the tomato bisque with the chicken marsala. The chicken marsala sauce was infused with cocoa and delicious. The chicken was nice and tender and I loved the mushrooms in the sauce. The one change I would make would be to have more veggies in the dish. The tomato bisque was topped with a little goat cheese and a few croutons. Delicious!

Prix Fixe Lunch featuring Chicken Marsala and Tomato Bisque

My husband's meal was quite sizable and included pork sliders, parmesan potato wedges and the Sanctuary Chopped Salad. The pork sliders were topped with a 10 year tawny port and cocoa infused BBQ sauce and coleslaw. The Sanctuary Chopped Salad included romaine, field greens, sweet corn, avocado, cocoa-candied bacon, tomatoes, hearts of palm, cheddar cheese, herb-parmesan crouton and chocolate vinaigrette. As you can see, my husband enjoyed his own chocolate infusion! The potato wedges also dynamite! He had leftovers and reports to me that they reheated well!

Pork Sliders, Parmesan Potato Wedges and the Sanctuary Chopped Salad

Dessert Time!

Our prix fixe meals each came with a token for a truffle. I did take a peek at the dessert menu and it is amazing! One thing that I loved about it is that it incorporated a variety of sizes for indulgences. So, you really could enjoy a small treat. We settled on the truffles for this visit but would like to return to explore the dessert menu. We ventured to the truffle counter. We were told there usually are more to choose from, but they were still replenishing from the holiday. However, we were pretty impressed by what we saw! Truffles were both unique and inventive.

Inventive truffles!

My husband let me daughter enjoy his truffle. We both chose the Salted Caramel which was AMAZING!

Salted Caramel Truffle for the win!

Overall, we found The Chocolate Sanctuary to be a wonderful adventure. Who can resist a little chocolate here and a little chocolate there! I loved that chocolate was incorporated in so many dishes but you could have something without chocolate as well. The Chocolate Sanctuary has so many options making it the ideal place for many adventures!

**Disclosure: No compensation was received for this post. All opinions are 100% my own.