Antica Dolceria Bonajuto

Antica Dolceria Bonajuto is a family-run chocolate maker in Modica, Sicily, generally cited as the oldest chocolate business in Sicily and among the oldest in Italy. The Bonajuto family were originally ice sellers in the Hyblaean Mountains before shifting toward pastry and confectionery in the first half of the 19th century; Federico Bonajuto bought a stone mill (frantoio) in 1853 to crush cacao beans for making bitter chocolate paste. His son Francesco formally opened the Dolceria in central Modica in 1880, and the business has continued under family ownership for six generations since. The shop's signature product is Modica chocolate (cioccolato di Modica), made by working cacao mass and sugar at low temperature without conching or refining — a method traced to Spanish colonial-era transmission of Aztec techniques — which leaves the chocolate with a distinctive grainy, unmelted-sugar texture rather than the smooth finish of conched chocolate. Bonajuto sells classic and flavoured bars (including chilli, vanilla, cinnamon and citrus variants), along with traditional Modican sweets such as 'mpanatigghi. In 2008 the business was included among Eurispes' list of 100 Italian excellences. The original shop remains in Modica's historic baroque centre and also ships internationally through its own website.