Advent calendar: Marcolini or Neuhaus?

Neuhaus if you want to set a budget, from €39 to €162.50, and know the weight of the box. Marcolini if you are after a single box at €55 and accept not knowing what it weighs, nor, on this 5 October, finding it in stock. I have tasted neither this year.

The head-to-head, checked on 5 October on the official pages

One calendar on the Marcolini side, four on the Neuhaus side. To compare like with like, I kept the two Neuhaus models that bracket the Marcolini on price and contents.

Cells marked "not checked" stay empty for lack of a source, and I do not fill them with guesses.

Which one is cheaper per door?

The Neuhaus Classic, at €1.56. The sum is elementary: €39 for 25 doors. Marcolini comes to €2.20, the Neuhaus Book (€69) to €2.76, the Irrésistible to €3.84.

That price per door makes the Marcolini 64 cents dearer per door than the Classic, and clearly cheaper than the Irrésistible. It therefore sits in the middle of the Neuhaus range, which is surprising for a house with a more upmarket reputation.

The limit is plain to see: a door can hold a figure or a filled praline, two things that are not worth the same gram of cocoa. The price per door tells you what you pay to open a door, not what you eat behind it.

Why the weight stays unanswered at Marcolini

Because the page does not say. Neuhaus lists 264 g, 319 g, 538 g and 987 g depending on the model, which gives, at the prices checked, €14.77, €21.63, €17.84 and €16.46 per 100 g. Marcolini lists nothing.

I could estimate, counting 25 pieces of around ten grams. I do not: an estimate placed in a table becomes a quoted figure.

What is behind the doors?

At Marcolini, the page announces 25 doors to open before Christmas, with truffles, ganaches, pralinés with feuilletine, coated almonds and hazelnuts, in dark and milk chocolate. It is a description of a family of chocolates, not a list of pieces.

At Neuhaus, the Classic's page names pralines (Albert, Cœur Praliné, Bloc Gianduja, Diamant, Dôme) and milk chocolate figures filled with hazelnut praliné. Mind the date: that page, in the English version for Belgium, still showed €38 on 5 October, last year's price. It probably describes the same box, but I do not guarantee it.

Neuhaus is the house that invented the filled praline in 1912, which makes its named pralines a reference point. Marcolini, for its part, works its own beans, as our comparison Godiva or Pierre Marcolini details.

Does Neuhaus have a box for every budget?

More or less, yes, and it is its real advantage in this duel. Four models, four prices checked: €39 the Classic, €69 the Book, €96 the Irrésistible, €162.50 the sharing calendar, which weighs 987 g. The Marcolini, for its part, exists in only two versions, €55 for the box alone, €79 with the Moleskine recipe notebook.

The sharing calendar works out at €16.46 per 100 g, less than the Book and the Irrésistible. If you want the most generous box for an office or a family, it is this one, and it has no equivalent at Marcolini: the Brussels house plays on a single box, the house founded in 1857 on a range you can calibrate to the euro according to the recipient, the table and the moment you will open the first door.

Is the packaging reusable?

Neither page promises it. Marcolini specifies cardboard made entirely in Belgium, which states the origin, not a second life. Neuhaus presents its Book as an illustrated keepsake in four chapters, according to its press release of September last year, and the Irrésistible as a box that unfolds into a tree.

If packaging matters, the Book is the only one to advertise it.

Availability: Marcolini out of stock, Neuhaus in stock

On 1 October, the Marcolini page mentioned limited stock. On the 5th, it showed the item as out of stock, with pre-order and no return date. Four days were enough.

For a calendar you want to open on 1 December, pre-ordering is workable. It is less so if you need a firm date. The page states delivery in one to two days in Belgium and three to four in France, plus in-store pickup within two hours, once stock is back.

At Neuhaus, every model was in stock. The stated delivery is one to two days in the Benelux, with free shipping from €60, which rules out the Classic bought alone at €39.

On storage, Marcolini gives the only figure I found: 14 to 18 °C, away from the fridge and from humidity.

Allergens and the Make-A-Wish donation: two lines to check

Allergens first. The Neuhaus Classic page lists milk, soy, hazelnuts, almonds and sesame, and states there is no alcohol. The Marcolini page lists none. That is not an absence of allergens, it is an absence of information: European regulation requires this information on the product, and you can read the text on EUR-Lex.

The donation next. A reseller site claims it for this year's calendars. I found nothing on the official pages, and last year's press release gives no amount. Until the product page says so, I do not write it as a fact.

The verdict by profile: who should pick what

No single winner. Here is how I would decide, by recipient:

• A tight budget and a box whose weight you know: the Neuhaus Classic, €39, 264 g, €1.56 a door.
• A gift that has to show: the Book at €69 or the Irrésistible at €96, with their more elaborate packaging, at roughly twice the price per door.
• A single box, a name, and the patience to pre-order: the Marcolini at €55, or €79 with the Moleskine recipe notebook, so €24 for the notebook.
• A child with allergies: neither, without reading the allergens of the exact model.

Two honest reservations to close. Marcolini gives neither the weight nor the date it will be back in stock. Neuhaus shows different prices depending on the version of the page (€39 on one, €38 on the other), and its donation is not confirmed.

To see everything that exists before choosing, and the other houses, the hub of chocolatier advent calendars keeps the table up to date. To choose by recipient, our guide advent calendar chocolate: which one to choose takes over, and Neuhaus or Leonidas places the ranges. The pages read are those of Marcolini and Neuhaus, and for the history of the house, the Wikipedia page on Neuhaus.