Dubai Chocolate Bars: When Chocolate Trends Go to Hell in a Pistachio-Coated Handbasket

An illustration of the ingredients in a Dubai bar: pistachios, phyllo dough, sesame seeds, and chocolate.

Let’s begin with a confession: I didn’t ask to know what Dubai chocolate is. Like most modern afflictions, it found me. One moment, I was living my life in peace — minding my own business, baking something that doesn’t require hashtags — and the next, I was assaulted by a TikTok video of some gooey, pistachio-laden monstrosity labeled “Dubai chocolate.”

Of course, it’s not from Dubai. Or rather, it might be — in the same way fortune cookies are Chinese or Caesar salads were tossed in ancient Rome. Dubai, bless it, has become internet shorthand for “rich, dramatic, and vaguely exotic.” And in the same way everything labeled “Parisian” in the 90s was probably just beige and overpriced, Dubai chocolate is less a regional delicacy and more a three-ingredient content farm in a candy wrapper.

The formula? Pistachio “cream” (a term that here means: sweetened nut paste bulked out with palm oil), shredded phyllo (tadayif, which does not need to be reinvented, thank you very much) that gets pan-fried, and tahini, for that drizzle of authenticity. This is all wrapped up in a thick coat of mediocre chocolate and cut open for the camera to reveal its oozing middle — a spectacle that seems to excite the same part of the brain that once responded to lava cakes and early episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Now, I’m not against trends. I’m against bad ones. And this? This is the dessert equivalent for people who clap when the plane lands.

The problem isn’t the idea — nuts and chocolate have known each other in the biblical sense for centuries. The problem is what happens when that idea is flattened, sweetened, and pushed through a ring light until it becomes a parody of itself. The internet loves food that looks like a sugar-drenched car crash. Bonus points if it oozes, melts, or crunches. Triple bonus if you can cut it open with scissors.

But flavor? Texture? Actual craft? That’s for people who still read books.

At Cacao Chemistry, we believe chocolate can still be indulgent without tasting like defeat. We’re not above playfulness — we’re just not building our legacy on pistachio slime and hashtag bait. That’s why we’re doing our own spin on this trend. Same flavor profile, different universe. Real ingredients. Balanced textures. Chocolate that remembers where it came from.

We’ve actually been experimenting with this flavor combination for a while. For a time, we carried a bar from Anjar Chocolatier— no palm oil, pistachio-forward, and beautifully balanced. It was a great bar, but it clocked in around $30 and wasn’t exactly a crowd favorite in the affordability department. So now we’re taking those same values and translating them into something more accessible — still premium, still made with integrity, just portioned to avoid the luxury tax.

If you want to know what that tastes like, come in and try it. We’ll make a post once it’s available. No ring light required.