'Dubai Chocolate' craze is going viral in the UK

Dubai: The 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.

The version of the treat by the famed Swiss chocolatier LAderach, called FrischSchoggi Dubai, has been a sensation at its London stores for a while. "The impact has been undeniable over the past year," says Stephan Stegen, LAderach's UK managing director.

"Even with weekly deliveries of FrischSchoggi Dubai from Switzerland, we've found our daily allocations consistently selling out by lunchtime."

In response the company will triple its UK stock starting next week, he says. "It is already outpacing our all-year-round current bestseller, Hazelnut Milk, by more than double." He adds, "We're witnessing such high demand that, with adequate stock, we believe this would increase even further."

If you're now in need of a snack, here are three top UK sources to get your own taste of the viral treat.

The premium confectioner, which has eight London outlets, including new stores in Selfridges Confectionery Hall and Canary Wharf, has gone big on its FrischSchoggi Dubai. Its version, sold in deluxe slabs, features roasted pistachios and shredded kataifi phyllo covered in chocolate, with soft green pistachio stripes on the exterior.

The luxurious chocolate isn't cheap, costing 32 pounds for 300 grams. Nor is the company done with Dubai-inspired sweets. In the summer, says marketing director Stegen, look out for Dubai-chocolate-inspired pralines.

If you saw frenzied activity around a Lidl store last weekend, it was undoubtedly because the J.D. Gross Dubai-Style Chocolate bar had hit shelves. (Prior to that, when the chocolate was only available through the store's TikTok shop, 6,000 bars sold in an hour.)

Its version follows the formula: a bar made with the store's J.D. Gross-branded chocolate and a notably thick filling of nutty sweet pistachio cream layered with the crunchy shredded phyllo. It goes for 4.99 pounds for a 122g bar.

Lindt launched its Dubai Style Chocolate Pistachio & Kadayif in the UK in December; now it's arrived at Waitrose in a light green package retailing for Pound10 for a 145g bar.

The confection features a shell of Lindt's signature milky chocolate surrounding dense pistachio and tahini paste and the crunchy threads of kadayif (another word for the shredded phyllo), and decorated with splatters of green and yellow.