Last week, when I was on vacation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), I had one goal in mind: obtaining the "Dubai chocolate" bar that went viral.
Inspired by the Arab dish Knafeh, the bar blends filo pastry with chocolate, pistachio and tahini ingredients. If you're on TikTok, you've probably seen it.
Since 2022, FIX Chocolatier's original, Can't Get Knafeh of It, has only been available for purchase in the United Arab Emirates. Due to its immense popularity on social media, it is only available for purchase for two hours every day and frequently sells out in a matter of minutes.
However, imitations sold under the moniker "Dubai chocolate" have now infiltrated UK stores such as Waitrose, Lidl, and Morrisons, with some restricting the quantity of bars that patrons may purchase.
Co-owner of FIX with his wife, Sarah Hamouda, Yezen Alani, told the BBC that the international recognition Dubai chocolate was receiving was "flattering and humbling."
Yezen Alani/Sarah Hamouda An image of Sarah and Yezen grinning. Both are sporting sunglasses, and Yezen is dressed in a football shirt. Yezen Alani/Sarah Hamouda
Sarah Hamouda and her husband, Yezen Alani, founded their chocolate company together.
Hamouda came up with the idea for the FIX chocolate bar in 2021 since she was craving the flavours throughout her pregnancy.
A year later, Alani and Hamouda began building the pub and managed it in addition to their corporate employment.
Sarah and I have both Arab and Western ancestry because we were raised in the UK and relocated to Dubai ten years ago.
"We wanted to create flavours that were inspired by that," Alani explains.
The fact that you can only get the chocolate through a meal delivery app rather than going into a store or picking it up at the grocery store adds to its allure.
In order to guarantee that the business can meet all of its orders, it is only available for purchase during certain hours of the day and costs about £15 per bar.
I also noticed that identical bars, referred to as "Dubai chocolate" and featuring images of filo dough and pistachios, were offered in other stores throughout the area.
"Very frustrating because people are trying knockoffs, which damages our brand," Alani adds of the "copycat" bars.
Getty Pictures An image of syrup being poured over a kanefah dessert. Getty Pictures
A common dessert in the Middle East, kanefah is created with shredded pastry, pistachios, and a filling of sweet cheese.
Social media has played a significant role in the bar's explosive growth, with a 2023 TikTok video featuring Maria Vehera going viral being credited as a major factor.
It has received almost seven million likes and depicts Vehera tasting the Knafeh bar for the first time, along with a number of other bars created by the same chocolatier.
From the appealing orange and green flecks on top of the silky milk chocolate to the crunch sound it makes when you break off a piece, the bar's appearance is perfect for social media.
Although chocolate and pistachios are not a novel combination, the filling's crunchiness and the filo pastry's contribution to the bar's thickness and texture make it truly remarkable.
Getty Pictures An image of a chocolate bar Getty Pictures
Imitation bars have been appearing all over the world, including in Dubai.
Other manufacturers, such as Swiss chocolate company Lindt, whose Dubai chocolate retails for £10 in stores, have begun to offer their copies of the Can't Get Knafeh of It bar in the UK as it is only accessible in one country.
Waitrose claims that in order to control supply levels since filling the bar, they had to impose a two-bar limit on patrons.
While grocer Lidl sells its own version for £4.99 and is also restricting the number of purchases, Home Bargains has now started selling another variant.
For this reason, one influencer captured how the bar has been kept behind tills.
There is a noticeable difference after trying the Lindt bar and a few other varieties that are offered for sale at corner stores.
The FIX chocolate has a short shelf life, like many dairy products, and is marketed as a 'dessert bar' that should be stored in the refrigerator.
For the others, this isn't the case because they're made to last longer.
The original bar is about twice as wide as the Lindt bar, which is more in line with the dimensions of a typical chocolate bar. This contrast in taste and texture is also noticeable.
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In the beginning, Alani and Hamouda just had one employee who fulfilled six or seven requests per day.
However, since becoming more and more well-known, mostly because to TikTok, their company now has 50 employees who process 500 orders per day.
The product's £15 per bar price has been a major discussion topic.
"It's all handmade, every single design is done by hand," Alani elaborates.
"We use premium ingredients and the process is not like making other bars - you've got the baking, moulding the chocolate to the design and with the filling itself, even the pistachios are hand-picked and processed" .
"My mother used to make Knafeh, and that's something I wanted to capture my own way," Hamouda stated in an interview with Arabian Business last year.
"The first flavour we mastered was knafeh. It had to have the perfect crunch and pistachio," she continued.
Despite the popularity of the product, Alani says "it's been a tough journey" because she and her partner have been raising their two kids and working together full-time.
"There's been times where we've wanted to give up, but we said to ourselves 'we'll keep going as long as we can pay the rent' and now we have no regrets as its worked out" .
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