You've probably seen it on TikTok. Someone snaps a chocolate bar in half, and inside — instead of the usual caramel or nougat — there's a thick swirl of vivid green pistachio cream and a satisfying crunch of shredded pastry. The comments fill up immediately: Where do I get this?
That's Dubai Chocolate. And if you haven't tried it yet, here's everything you need to know.
Where Did Dubai Chocolate Come From?
The original bar was created in 2021 by Sarah Hamouda, an Egyptian-British engineer, and chef Nouel Omamalin at their Dubai-based shop, Fix Dessert Chocolatier. Hamouda, pregnant at the time, was craving something that reminded her of a classic Middle Eastern dessert — knafeh — and asked Omamalin to turn it into chocolate form.
The result was a bar called Can't Get Knafeh of It: a milk chocolate shell filled with pistachio-tahini cream and kadayif, a fine shredded pastry that toasts up beautifully crunchy. They hand-made each bar, sold it locally, and didn't think much of it beyond that.
Then in 2024, a TikTok video of someone cutting the bar open went viral. Within months, it had accumulated hundreds of millions of views. Every major grocery chain in Europe ran their own version. Waitrose in the UK imposed a two-bar-per-customer limit. The demand for pistachios globally surged so fast that prices jumped 34% in under a year.
A dessert born from a pregnancy craving in Dubai had become the food trend of the decade.
What Actually Makes It So Good?
It's easy to dismiss viral food trends as pure hype. Dubai Chocolate is different, and there are real reasons why.
The texture is the whole point. Most chocolate has one texture: smooth. Dubai Chocolate has three — the snap of the chocolate shell, the creaminess of pistachio paste, and the crunch of toasted kadayif pastry inside. Every bite gives you something different, and that contrast is genuinely addictive.
The flavor is surprisingly complex. Pistachio has a natural richness that pairs beautifully with milk chocolate, and the tahini adds a subtle nuttiness that keeps it from being too sweet. It doesn't taste like any other chocolate bar you've had.
It's wildly photogenic. That bright green interior against dark chocolate? It was made for the feed. Whether it's a photograph or a slow-motion video of someone breaking it apart, Dubai Chocolate looks as good as it tastes.
It feels like something. Food trends that last are usually the ones that carry a story — something with origins, craft, and meaning behind it. Dubai Chocolate brings a piece of Middle Eastern dessert culture to people who may have never tasted knafeh before. That sense of discovery is part of the appeal.
What Is Kadayif (and Why Does It Matter)?
One ingredient you'll keep seeing when people talk about Dubai Chocolate is kadayif — also written as kataifi, or called kunafa or knafeh in different parts of the Middle East. It's a thin, hair-like shredded pastry that gets pan-toasted in butter until golden and crisp.
In classic knafeh, it's layered with cheese and soaked in sweet syrup. In Dubai Chocolate, it's mixed with pistachio cream and packed inside a chocolate shell — where the residual warmth of the chocolate keeps it just crunchy enough without making it soggy.
It's a small detail that makes an enormous difference. Without the kadayif, you just have a pistachio chocolate bar. With it, you have something genuinely new.
The Dubai Chocolate Strawberry: A Fresh Take on the Trend
At Dolcella, we don't just make chocolate bars — we make live, fresh-crafted chocolate experiences right in front of you.
Our Dubai Chocolate Covered Strawberries take everything that makes the original trend so compelling and build something entirely new around it. Fresh strawberries are dipped in our signature chocolate fountain, then layered with hazelnut chocolate, pistachio cream filling, and kadayif as a topping. The result is something you won't find anywhere else: the crunch and richness of Dubai Chocolate, wrapped around the brightness of a fresh strawberry.
It's made to order. It's made to be seen. And it's made from the same Italian chocolate tradition our factory in Valle d'Aosta has been perfecting since the 1950s.
Where Can You Try Dubai Chocolate Covered Strawberries?
You can find Dolcella kiosks at:
- Burlington Mall, Burlington, MA
- The Mall at Rockingham Park, Salem, NH
- Pheasant Lane Mall, Nashua, NH
Just look for the chocolate fountain.
Why Dubai Chocolate Isn't Going Away
Food trends fade. This one hasn't — and the reasons aren't hard to see. Pistachio is now one of the fastest-growing flavors across every food category, from lattes to gelato to pastries. The texture combination of chocolate, creaminess, and crunch has proven to be universally appealing rather than niche. And the visual appeal of anything Dubai Chocolate-adjacent remains as strong as ever on social media.
What started as a small-batch bar from a shop in Dubai has genuinely changed how people think about what chocolate can be.
We think that's worth celebrating — one fresh strawberry at a time.
Come find us at your nearest Dolcella kiosk and try our Dubai Chocolate Covered Strawberries — made fresh, right in front of you.
Come taste the trend fresh from the fountain.
Find your nearest Dolcella kiosk →