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Quick Take:
Dubai chocolate — a thick, gooey chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream, tahini, and shredded filo pastry — has taken the internet and Eugene by storm. Local shops like Sweet Life, Euphoria Chocolate Co., and Bended are making as much as they can to keep up with demand.
Pistachio is having a moment.
Dubai chocolate, the viral pistachio trend, is on display in Eugene. Pistachio-based flavors in general have been trending, leading to global pistachio shortages and increased prices, though shortages don’t seem to be affecting Eugene’s market.
You can find pistachio lattes in cafes such as Horai Bakery. Black Market Toffee makes Lucky toffee flavored with dark chocolate, roasted pistachios, and sea salt. Blended has leaned into the trend with Dubai strawberry cups, Dubai brownies, Dubai angel-hair chocolate bars, and Dubai cookies. Euphoria Chocolate Co. and Sweet Life Patisserie are making their own versions of the pistachio chocolate bars.
In Eugene, the trend is active and growing.
At Chefs’ Night Out in April, both winners of the Sweet Bite awards used the delicate flavor of pistachios. The winner, Lane Community College’s culinary program, won with a pistachio cake with a saffron, turmeric, and orange blossom cream filling with orange zest and whipped cream with toasted coconut and pistachios. Honorable Mention was bestowed on Sweet Life Patisserie’s Dubai chocolate–inspired bite featuring a French brownie layered with pistachios, Viennese buttercream, and milk chocolate ganache with toasted filo.
What is Dubai chocolate?
Dubai chocolate was invented at FIX Dessert Chocolatier in the United Arab Emirates. It’s a decadent combination of silky pistachio cream blended with savory tahini (sesame seed paste) and knafeh, or shredded filo pastry made with kataifi dough, to provide a bit of texture similar to a Kit Kat bar. Then it’s all covered in a layer of chocolate.
Dubai bars are notably thick and substantial, with a gooey filling that oozes out when squeezed or bitten, making them quite decadent compared with typical chocolate bars.
In December 2023, TikTok influencer Maria Vehera posted a video of herself ravenously devouring the chocolate bar from FIX. The video quickly went viral, leading to imitators around the world replicating the flavorful combo, driving up sales of chocolate, pistachio, pistachio cream, and knafeh.
Local shops embrace the trend
Sweet Life’s Dubai-inspired bar
Catherine Reinhart, co-owner of Sweet Life, said the store has been quickly selling out of as many Dubai-inspired bars as they can make.
“We’ll get like, 200 bars, we’ll use everything we have, and then we’ll wrap them and put them out, and they’ll be gone,” Reinhart said. “We get five calls a day or more. It’s just crazy. I’ve never seen anything get so popular. It’s a really good dessert, but so are so many other things. It just kind of cracks me up.”
Sweet Life initially began selling Dubai chocolate bars made by other companies. Then, their chocolatier, Meredith Griffin, began creating her own. Sweet Life ordered a larger-sized chocolate mold to accommodate the thicker style of the Dubai bar, made their own pistachio cream, and experimented with milk and dark chocolate.
“I’m more of a fan of dark chocolate than milk, but the traditional Dubai bar is milk chocolate,” Reinhart said. “Meredith came up with an amazing recipe. I don’t know how close it is to a Dubai bar, because I’ve never gone online and bought the original Dubai bar, but we made it to suit our taste, which is always a little less sweet.”
Reinhart said the store has had difficulty getting all of the ingredients at the same time to consistently produce the bars.
Euphoria’s perfect bite
Bonnie Glass, owner of Euphoria Chocolate Co., took a different approach. Her Dubai Bites feature a thin layer of chocolate forming the top and bottom. The sides remain exposed, showing the bright green pistachio and toasted filo filling. It’s easy to eat in one or two bites.
“Typically the presentation is a bar, but I wanted to show more of the filling,” Glass said. “So the bite is a version of the Dubai bar that is more filling to chocolate. I also feel like it’s such a beautiful color combination with that great green color that I wanted that and the color of the chocolate to be visible.”
Glass believes the appeal of Dubai chocolate is in both flavor and texture.
“I think the real star is the flavor of the pistachios and the texture,” she said. “That’s what’s really getting people.”
Blended goes beyond the bar
At Blended in the 5th Street Market Alley, manager Alyssa Kahn prepares an entire line of pistachio-inspired treats.
“We started out with pistachio macarons and pistachio cookies,” she said. “Those started selling really well, then we moved on to Dubai chocolate.”
But Blended’s most popular item isn’t a chocolate bar at all.
“It’s the Strawberry Cup,” Kahn said. “It’s a chocolate sauce and a pistachio sauce, then poured over cut-up fresh strawberries, then we have the kataifi mix in there as well, and it’s just stuffed on top of each other.”
The Strawberry Cup is decadent, and plenty large enough to share with two or three others, if you were willing to. While a chocolate-covered strawberry is rich enough, this dessert takes it further with the nutty, buttery pistachio cream adding a savory note, and the toasty shredded filo adding an addictive crunch. Then it’s all topped with chopped pistachios. They layer on so much of each ingredient that each bite is creamy, rich, crunchy, sweet, savory, and nutty.
The shop has expanded its pistachio offerings to include Dubai-inspired crepes, waffles, brownies, and even a protein pudding. The popular cookies are a chocolate chip cookie filled with the pistachio-filo blend. They also sell a popular soft, fudgy brownie stacked with the crunchy filo dough and pistachio mix covered with a chocolate ganache.
Blended may already be stocking the next dessert trend: angel-hair chocolate.
Inspired by the Dubai chocolate, Belgian chocolate maker Tucho created angel-hair chocolate in December 2024. Rather than shards of filo dough inside, angel-hair chocolate reveals fine strands of fluffy spun sugar along with the pistachio butter. The original is encased by white chocolate, but Blended uses milk.
Blended’s chocolate bar combines bright pink pişmaniye, or Turkish cotton candy, with a layer of pistachio cream, surrounded by chocolate on the top and bottom. The very finely spun sugar melts instantly on the tongue, and provides a caramelized sugar flavor without the cloying sweetness of traditional cotton candy.
The economics of indulgence
These treats come with premium prices.
Global demand for the light green nut came at a time when supplies were low, leading to high prices. Most varieties of pistachios bear higher crops in alternating years, and 2024 was an off year. And chocolate is expensive now, too. Cocoa prices have surged during the past two years due to global shortages driven by disease, climate change, and weather-related losses.
Sweet Life’s half-pound Dubai-inspired bar sells for $20 and is limited to four per person due to high demand. Blended’s Strawberry Cups retail for $17.
“We calculate the price based on how much time it takes, what the labor is, and what the cost of the ingredients are,” Reinhart said. “That’s what it costs. We didn’t want to do supply-demand kind of price gouging.”
Euphoria’s Dubai Bite is the most economical of the options, at $3.49 per bite. Cashier Abbey Winter says customers frequently ask about availability, and the treats typically sell out quickly.
Despite the fast pace of trends these days, Glass says for now, Dubai Bites will remain a regular menu item.
“With any trend, there’s invariably an end, so we’re just going to enjoy it while we can, because it is delicious,” she said. “As long as people want it, we’re going to make it.”
Want some?
Call your favorite shop first if you want to be sure they have the popular Dubai-inspired items in stock.
Blended
https://www.5stmarket.com/blended
5th Street Market Alley
9:30 a.m. – 9 p.m. daily
Euphoria Chocolate Co.
https://euphoriachocolate.com
Factory Store
4090 Stewart Rd.
541-344-4605
Mon. – Fri. 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sat. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
5th Street Market Alley
590 Pearl St. Suite 108
458-210-2988
Mon. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Sun. 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Oakway Center
21 Oakway Rd.
541-343-0407
Mon. – Sat. 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Sun. 12 – 5 p.m.
Sweet Life Patisserie
https://www.sweetlifedesserts.com
541-683-5676
Original store:
755 Monroe St.
8 a.m. – 10 p.m. daily
Petite Store:
1609 E. 19th Ave.
8 a.m. – 10 p.m. daily
