Baiting the Zoomers: what's the secret to Dubai chocolate's popularity
In the fall of 2024, TikTok was flooded with reviews of an unusual sweet with a green filling - Dubai chocolate. Within a few months, the videos gained rabid popularity, which provoked a high demand to buy the treat, despite the biting price tag of several thousand rubles. Russian companies were not left behind and started selling budget analogs on marketplaces, and introduced hip chocolate into product lines and restaurant menus. At the same time, doctors warn: Oriental sweetness can give not only bright taste sensations, but also serious health problems. Why Dubai chocolate has become so popular, in what unusual forms it can be tried in Russia and how many treats can be eaten at a time, so as not to harm the body - in the material "Izvestia".
What is Dubai chocolate and what is its specialty
The world-famous Dubai chocolate is a dessert filled with pistachio or sesame paste and kataifi dough. The author of this culinary masterpiece is considered to be the founder of Dubai's Fix Dessert Chocolatier, Sarah Hamouda. The idea for the unusual chocolate came to her during her pregnancy, when Sarah wanted to complement the usual taste of cocoa with nuts and fibrous dough.
Fans of the sensational sweetness note that it is the combination of the heavy pistachio paste and crunchy kataifi that gives the dessert an unusual flavor. Some say that Dubai chocolate resembles waffles, glazed halva or goosefoot candies.
To date, the standard of popular Dubai delicacy is chocolate brand Fix. And it is difficult to buy original pistachio chocolate even in Dubai: the dessert is sold only with delivery at certain hours and in limited quantities. The price of one bar is 68.25 AED (a little more than 1900 rubles). You can also order chocolate through the international delivery service from Dubai, but due to transportation the cost of the dessert may increase significantly.
Dubai chocolate can also be found on Russian marketplaces. There, the price of a 200 g Fix bar will cost about 3-4 thousand rubles.
How Dubai chocolate became the most popular sweet in 2024
For the first time, Dubai chocolate became known thanks to a video from TikTok, which was posted by blogger Maria Vehera in 2021. On it, the girl tasted the treat with great pleasure, raving about its flavor palette. The video went viral, racking up nearly 111 million views and thousands of user reactions to date. However, the popular video did not prompt users to sweep the pistachio dessert off store shelves.
Three years later, the video went viral again, and this time social network users wanted to try the novelty themselves. In the fall of 2024, when buyers began to actively promote Dubai chocolate on marketplaces, the demand for the elite treat began to grow actively. In October, the Moneyplace marketplace analytics service recorded an explosive growth in sales from a few dozen bars to several thousand. From October 1 to October 20, 2024, 4.2 thousand bars worth 5.4 million rubles were sold on Wildberries. In one month, Dubai Sweet brought sellers 175.3 million rubles.
The queue for Dubai chocolate in Germany
In 2025, the demand for Dubai chocolate remains high. Some buyers are ready to break the law in order to enrich themselves at the expense of selling the popular delicacy. In January, Izvestia wrote about the seizure by customs officers in Tyumen of more than 56 kilograms of undeclared Dubai chocolate worth 940 thousand rubles, which were delivered to the region for sale directly from the UAE.
According to Olga Kharitonova, General Director of 2L Communications Agency, the key factors of the phenomenon of Dubai chocolate's super-popularity were Influencers and UGC-content that triggered the viral effect, but not the unique taste qualities of the product. The starting pulse occurs when an influencer creates successful content with a product. The wave of curiosity is followed by a wave of reposts and remakes of the "top" video. The trend remains relevant until the bloggers themselves find a more interesting product, the expert explained.
Dubai chocolate continues to be popular, as the dessert is ingrained in the minds of TikTok users as a trendy and status product that one wants to own, said Sergey Eremin, head of the Internet advertising agency Ermin Marketing. The expert emphasized that Dubai chocolate is the embodiment of competent marketing, which managed to turn a local product into an international trend.
The main hunters of pistachio delicacy
According to experts, the main revenue from Dubai chocolate sales to entrepreneurs comes from those who purchase expensive trendy items to fulfill social and psychological needs.
- The main target audience of Dubai chocolate is women aged 18-35 who actively use social networks and are inclined to buy trendy products that can be shown to their surroundings," said Sergey Yeremin.
The audience also includes young people who perceive Dubai chocolate as a fashion trend, an accessible symbol of luxury, and a more mature audience that chooses it for special occasions, the expert added.
According to Daria Bondareva, head of the advertising department of SETTERS agency, people fall for Dubai's "bait" because of the effective combination of a unique product offer and competent marketing, which uses the effect of rarity and inaccessibility.
- People always want exclusivity and belonging to a certain group. Chocolate has its own unique aesthetics: creative packaging, hand-painting on the bar itself and, of course, the crunch, which further stimulates UGC content," explained the interviewee.
Olga Kharitonova emphasized that it was social networks that made Dubai chocolate famous, so its main buyers are users who regularly consume entertainment content by watching such reviews. The story continued with videos of culinary experts and amateurs experimenting to create "Russian chocolate" with unexpected additives - from buckwheat and macaroni to caviar.
How the Dubai dessert has influenced the Russian sweets market
Today, Dubai chocolate continues to be one of the most popular sweets. However, Russian confectioners have come up with new readings of the dessert, which have already managed to conquer the capital's gourmets. At the UNICA restaurant you can try sweets with the famous pistachio filling, which, just like the chocolate itself, are made of the highest quality products.
- I use milk chocolate with reduced sugar content, which gives the candies a fantastic flavor. They also feature kataife dough that is fried with butter until crunchy, tahini paste, and 100 percent pistachio paste. This combination makes the candy memorable," Vera Poleshchuk, pastry chef of UNICA restaurant, shared with Izvestia.
The ERWIN.RekaMoreOcean restaurant also decided to experiment with shape and texture, creating Dubai cheesecake.
- Dubai Cheesecake is a combination of creamy cheesecake, rich pistachio flavor and a buttery, crispy base. It consists of a crumbly base, tender creamy-cheese filling, pistachio paste with crispy kataifi dough and thick chocolate glaze, - said the pastry chef of ERWIN.RekaMoreOcean restaurant Tatiana Markina.
According to her, today the dessert is in great demand due to the successfully selected combination of flavors and sensations - creaminess, spicy crunch and nutty richness. This combination has managed to be introduced in the Japanese restaurant Coba, where they serve a mochi dessert with a filling reminiscent of Dubai chocolate, in the Italian Sartoria Lamberti, where they invented tiramisu "Sofi" with kataifi and pistachio, as well as in the chain of Russian cuisine restaurants "Teremok", where they recently released a pancake "Dubai Chocolate".
Some retail chains have also added the sensational Dubai Chocolate to their assortment. "Vkusvill" sells it under its own brand, "Lenta" offers customers to try Dubai chocolate from the Russian company French kiss, and in "Magnit" you can find a budget analog of the oriental dessert, which is produced by the Turkish manufacturer of sweets Bolci. A 30 g bar will cost 119 rubles.
Less is better: the benefits and harms of Dubai chocolate
The main thing that distinguishes this chocolate from other desserts with cocoa content is the presence of pistachio paste in its composition, said Alexei Kabanov, consultant nutritionist, deputy director of the ANO Research Center "Healthy Nutrition". Pistachios contain unsaturated fats, which we do not get enough of in our daily diet. In addition, chocolate contains coconut oil or high-quality red palm oil, which are also useful for the body.
The components that make up Dubai chocolate are not harmful to health individually. However, when they are combined, the result is a tasty, but extremely caloric sweet.
According to Alexandra Kovaleva, a gastroenterologist at the medical center "Be Healthy", 100 g of chocolate contains about 50-60 g of carbohydrates, 30-40 g of fats and up to 10 g of protein. The caloric content of this dessert is from 600 to 1000 kcal in 100 g. Most of the carbohydrates contained in chocolate are fast. They instantly satisfy hunger, but do not satiate for a long time. That is why you should not eat Dubai chocolate in bars, otherwise you will have problems with excess weight.
Inaddition, it should be cautiously included in the menu of people who suffer from diabetes. If you eat a bar of such chocolate whole, the level of glucose in the blood will increase sharply, and this can be extremely dangerous for diabetics. Those who are allergic to nuts will have to give up Dubai chocolate altogether, Ekaterina Kashukh, a gastroenterologist and expert physician at the Gemotest laboratory, told Izvestia.
Anna Shafer, a nutritionist at the K+31 clinic, recommended eating no more than 30 g of pistachio candy - up to three pieces a day. Otherwise, the combination of sugar, nuts and wheat dough fried in oil can negatively affect the GI tract. Regular consumption of large amounts of Dubai chocolate can provoke diarrhea, as well as aggravate pancreatitis and gallstone disease, the expert concluded.
