As the trendy Dubai Chocolate bar continues to sweep the world, a new Lebanese chocolate bar called Beirut Chocolate is slowly making headlines across Middle-Eastern media, hoping to overshadow its Dubai rival.
The Beirut Chocolate bar has been recently created by Lebanese-Australian pastry chef Philip Khoury and is described as a “nostalgic” treat. In contrast with the Dubai Chocolate, which is filled with pistachio cream and shredded kataifi, this bar is made with 50 percent Esmeraldas almond milk, filled with orange blossom caramel and layered with cashew cream baklava. It also features a vintage Lebanese postage stamp, which especially to the Lebanese expats, brings a nostalgic touch. The bar is 100 percent plant-based and its creator is the author of the award-winning book on plant-based baking, A New Way to Bake.
Khoury, an award-winning chef and the former Head of Pastry at Harrod’s in London, has been inspired by Dubai Chocolate, the viral creation by Fix Dessert Chocolatier. He brings the Beirut bar along with other creations to Douk, a fundraising food market held at Comptoir Libanais on Gloucester Road in London, while he hopes to soon make his chocolate available for everyone to order.
Beirut Chocolate has been welcomed by Lebanese media with headlines such as “Step Aside Dubai Chocolate, Beirut Chocolate Is Here!” while some articles even carry a message for consumers: “Can we finally put the Dubai chocolate trend to rest and make way for the Beirut chocolate?”
Dubai Chocolate: the viral sweet that Beirut Chocolate hopes to surpass
Dubai Chocolate, the chocolate bar stuffed with aromatic pistachio cream and crispy kadaifi shreds, is much more than this year’s viral sweet that has taken the globe by storm. It has turned into an absolute craze and everyone wants a piece of it—consumers a bite of the scrumptious sweet, and manufacturers a bite of its booming sales.
Dubai Chocolate, as its name proclaims, originated in Dubai, though several social media users say it existed long before British-Egyptian entrepreneur Sarah Hamouda came up with the idea. Her Dubai-based Fix Dessert Chocolatier had been creating a series of handmade, filled chocolate bars, including some flavored with vanilla custard, caramel and fudge, and Nutella brownies. But it was the pistachio-cream bar that gave her company traction, along with the actual Dubai chocolate bar. Within months of a famous food blogger posting a viral TikTok video in early 2024, Dubai Chocolate became omnipresent across all social media platforms. Today, the video has over 80 million views and has been trending non-stop on TikTok, with users posting thousands of videos related to the Dubai Chocolate trend—from recipes to new variations.
Dubai Chocolate is based on Middle-Eastern ingredients such as pistachio and kataifi (also known as kunefe or knafe in that part of the world) which are wrapped in chocolate, a more typically European ingredient.
As the Dubai Chocolate craze started gripping the globe, dozens of countries and sweet manufacturers alike started quickly adapting to the trend.