03-04-2025
The Viral Dubai Chocolate Frenzy Has Finally Arrived in the UK
Dubai chocolate has been around since 2021, when a woman named Sarah Hamouda layered sweet-salty pistachio cream with tahini and crispy shredded phyllo dough with chocolate for her company Fix Dessert Chocolate. The confection quickly made the rounds on TikTok, people began making it themselves, and posts about the nutty, crunchy chocolate regularly generate millions of views. Demand has been so strong that the Turkish pistachio industry was impacted: In 2024 the country substantially increased exports of Syrian nuts to stabilize prices of pastries such as baklava.
Demand in the US has been so fierce that knockoff versions have proliferated. And now Dubai chocolate is finally blowing up in the UK, thanks to belated efforts by retailers offering their own pistachio-chocolate bars. The reaction in Britain has been intense. Lines formed outside some Lidl stores when they began selling J.D. Gross Dubai-Style Chocolate bars on March 29. On Sunday, Waitrose introduced Lindt's Dubai Style Chocolate bars at some stores; demand was so great, it quickly had to limit supply to two per customer.
