‘It’s the new Nutella’: Where to find TikTok-viral Dubai chocolate across South Florida

Last fall, hordes of customers swamped the phone lines and social media at Plantation’s Sultan Nut House, clamoring for a viral candy bar that manager Amr Ibrahim had never heard of before: Dubai chocolate.

Now each morning, he oven-roasts and grounds 15 pounds of Turkish-imported pistachios in a blender to create the shop’s hottest-selling treat ever — making just enough to yield 100 chocolate bars, which he says promptly disappears off the shelves in a single day.

“I’ve never seen people go crazy over a chocolate bar,” Ibrahim tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It’s $13 for a small bar, but customers say they don’t mind the prices because they spent way more at other shops.”

The year-old Dubai chocolate TikTok trend is stronger than ever across South Florida, where bakeries, chocolatiers and candy stores have started carrying the hard-to-find confection — or making it themselves. While Sultan Nut House has reverse-engineered its own recipe, other spots like Damn Good Sweets in Delray Beach and To the Moon in Wilton Manors are shipping bars in from other states and countries.

For those living under a social-media rock, the crunchy-creamy confection — yes, born in Dubai — is a bricklike, hollow milk chocolate bar bursting with pistachio cream and kataifi (or shredded phyllo dough). The hashtag #DubaiChocolate has been white-hot since December 2023, with countless videos of home cooks crafting versions of the bar and TikTok influencers feeding the sweet-treat craze with videos where they’re biting into the bar’s snappy shell.

‘A lot of trial and error’

The global sensation started with Sarah Hamouda, owner of Dubai’s FIX Dessert Chocolatier, who invented the bar known as “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” to satisfy her pregnancy cravings back in 2021. After a period of sluggish sales, one TikToker’s video in December 2023 changed her fortunes. That video — which now stands at 121.2 million views and 6.7 million likes — triggered fast sellouts at FIX and launched thousands of imitators.

Because FIX’s bar is handmade and unavailable outside of the United Arab Emirates, the confection has spawned a robust cottage industry of dupes aiming to profit off the trend, selling the bars under a generic “Dubai chocolate” label with no reference to the original.

In December, popular Swiss chocolate maker Lindt created a version and reportedly sold out 300 limited-edition bars in a day at their New York City flagship store.

Sultan Nut House owner Dirdis and his wife, Khadija Abdelaziz, spent three weeks reverse-engineering the Dubai chocolate recipe from heaps of TikToks and YouTube how-tos, according to Ibrahim.

In the kitchen, Ibrahim says he blends 1,000 oven-roasted pistachios with a touch of coconut oil, melted white chocolate and other ingredients to create the signature pistachio cream. Then he transfers the cream and shredded phyllo dough into a milk-chocolate mold before sealing it shut.

“We went through a lot of trial and error to get the flavor profile right,” Ibrahim explains. “We don’t want to sell premade stuff because it might not be authentic. This is much fresher — the pistachios were just roasted.”

Their Dubai-style chocolate bars range from $12.99 (3 ounces) to $35 (18 ounces), and Sultan also sells Dubai strawberry cups, a viral variant that incorporates layers of crispy phyllo, pistachio cream, chopped pistachios, fresh strawberries, chocolate and Nutella into one parfait.

Premium prices are common across South Florida, where customers might pay anywhere from $9.99 for a small bar at To the Moon in Wilton Manors up to as much as $45 for a large imported bar at Chocolate on Tap, a kiosk inside Aventura Mall.

Ava Praschnik, a full-time Miami food influencer known as @yumiami_ on social media, says Dubai chocolate’s base ingredients strike the perfect balance between exotic and crowd-pleasing. Because they’re hard to find and harder to recreate, it’s kept the viral bar trendy in South Florida, she argues.

“Remember how trendy Nutella got some years ago? This is the new Nutella,” she says. “There’s lots of weird ingredients that average people haven’t heard of, like pistachio cream and kataifi. And because they’re so expensive, shops have to raise prices to make any kind of profit on it.”

Not everyone believes Dubai chocolate deserves the hype. Christina Kozman, an IT professional who has a side-hustle as food influencer @ms.soflo on social media, thinks the treat craze is overblown.

“I’m Dubai-chocolated out right now,” Kozman, of Fort Lauderdale, says with a laugh. “Maybe I’ve had too much of it. But I’ve had amazing Middle Eastern desserts that deserve to be more viral than this. Onto the next trend.”

‘They’re selling like Wonka bars’

But Jimmy Anderson, owner of Sweet Aloha Ice Cream in Davie, is just getting started. In November, influencer Praschnik and friend Rachel Samson stopped by Sweet Aloha to shoot a social video spotlighting its Hawaiian shave ice. After sampling Anderson’s flavors, they recommended he also try incorporating the viral Dubai chocolate.

“I was like, ‘Dubai chocolate’? They showed me all these TikTok videos and said I could sell a lot,” Anderson recalls. “So I started researching the flavors and layers on TikTok and made sample batches of pistachio cream.”

The result? In January, he released a Dubai chocolate sundae, layering drizzles of chocolate sauce, pistachio cream, crushed pistachios, crispy kataifi, Dubai chocolate ice cream and more chocolate. Anderson says it tastes just like the “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” bar.

Anderson says 400 customers ordered the sundae during the first two weeks — so far, it’s a “Top 5 seller of the year.” It’s sold at a higher markup compared with other sundaes: $8.95 for a single scoop, $12.95 for a double.

“We have to cover labor and expenses for each ingredient,” Anderson says. “The cream takes a ton of pistachios. It’s not like putting a scoop in a cup and adding hot fudge and cherries. It’s a time-intensive dessert.”

No matter how he prices them, “they’re selling like Wonka bars, except the golden ticket is the pistachio cream and kataifi combo inside,” he adds.

Antonio Dumas, whose Wilton Manors candy store To the Moon sells adult gag gifts alongside bagged candies, thinks the Dubai chocolate fandom “is out of control.” Even so, he imports bars that are branded “Dubai chocolate” from makers in Turkey, Canada and California — and sells about 100 every week.

“I’m the local candyologist, as they say, and this is the biggest thing I’ve seen in 20 years of business,” says Dumas, who offers 214 candy varieties from 95 countries. He charges $9.99 for a small bar and $19.99 for a large one.

“It’s always, ‘Do you have Dubai chocolate bars?’” he says. “I don’t see it slowing down. Not until every kids gets it, and then they always come back for more.”

WHERE TO FIND DUBAI CHOLCOLATE

Here are a few places in Broward and Palm Beach counties:

• Sweet Aloha Ice Cream, 8600 W. State Road 84, Davie (sundaes and milkshakes)
• Sultan Nut House, 1836 N. University Drive, Plantation (housemade bars)
• To the Moon, 2205 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors (imported bars)
• Dua Gelato & Coffee, 2484 N. Federal Highway, Lighthouse Point (sundaes)
• Tasteful Thoughts, 8692 Griffin Road, Cooper City (housemade bars)
• Icy-N-Spicy 12567 Miramar Parkway, Miramar (housemade Dubai chocolate ice cream, milkshakes)
• Macamochi (inside Sistrunk Marketplace food hall), 115 NW Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale (housemade bars)
• Damn Good Sweets, 8854 W. Atlantic Ave., Suite B2, Delray Beach (imported bars)
• Bulk Candy Store, 235 N. Jog Road, West Palm Beach (imported bars)

Originally Published: March 27, 2025 at 1:35 PM EDT