It’s the middle-class equivalent of the Prime energy drink craze: Waitrose is even limiting customers to two bars per person.
Dubai style chocolate – with its pistachio, tahini and kadayif pastry (filo pastry made into fine strings and used in knafeh, the Middle Eastern dessert) – has arrived in the UK. This week, Swiss chocolatier Lindt became the first international manufacturer to sell its own version in our supermarkets. And it will only cost you £10 a bar for the privilege (Lindt’s other bars retail at around £3).
What is Dubai style chocolate?
The ‘Can’t Get Knafeh of It’ handmade bar was created in 2021 by Dubai’s Fix Dessert Chocolatier in response to the owner’s pregnancy cravings, and went on sale for £20. After a slow start, it went viral in 2023 when TikTok users started posting videos of themselves cracking open the thick milk chocolate bar, showing the bright green, textured filling oozing out, and then biting into it greedily. One of the early videos has now racked up 121.2 million views.
Viewers, naturally, began clamouring to try it for themselves. It quickly became known as the “Dubai bar” or “Dubai chocolate”, and Deliveroo revealed in November 2024 the bar had taken the top spot for the most trending dish globally.
As the original is only available in Dubai, people all over the world began to make their own (NYT Cooking has its own recipe) with pistachio crème filling from M&S and Lidl repeatedly selling out. You can now find homemade versions available in corner shops around the UK, while bigger brands, like Lidl, Søstrene Grene, and now Lindt, have jumped on the trend. All the brands have found that their bars repeatedly sell out.
Lindt’s bar, made in Germany, had its first limited launch in November last year. There were queues around the block with people reportedly travelling from as far as Malaysia to taste it. Now it’s available on our shores, from Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Ocado.
It’s easy to understand the appeal of this particular sweet treat.
The colour of the pistachio crème filling (a light khaki green) and the texture (gooey and crunchy) makes cracking open the thick chocolate slab visually tasty, irrespective of the actual flavour. It’s really all about the ooze: TikTokkers break the bars open with their hands and let the filling drip out in messy, sage excess. It’s been riding the wider wave of pistachio mania which is seeing little green nuts appearing in everything from croissants to gin to iced coffee syrup.
Add to this the costly ingredients (pistachios are not cheap), the inflated price (the original is £20) and its home (the UAE has long projected an idea of luxury to the rest of the world), and hype is inevitable.
Is it worth £10?
So first thing’s first – the Lindt version is far more modest than the original. While chunkier than a normal Lindt bar (coming in at 145g), it is practically a waif compared to the OG Dubai bar at 200g.
It is, as a result, far less messy. There’s less filling, so while it does spill out slightly it does not ooze. I like this. This bar may be an indulgence but it doesn’t need to be a whole production to taste good.
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I think it tastes lovely. The chocolate is your classic Lindt milk, and the filling is delightful – really rich in pistachio flavour (they use crème that’s 45 per cent pistachios, an impressive ratio), and the crunch of the kadayif, which is crisp and toasty, is a lovely contrast. It’s also, crucially, not too sweet on the first bite. There’s a salty, savouriness from the toasted kadayif and the pistachios that makes me want to eat more.
I can barely manage another square, though, before it becomes a bit much. It’s frankly quite sickly, which feels a bit mad given I’ve not had much. The only other version we were able to find today on the high street (£15 from LoveCoca) didn’t warrant more than one bite and was far too sweet. Its crème contains just 20 per cent pistachio, and I noticed the difference.
Is it worth £10? I’m not convinced. It does taste good and I enjoyed it, but the pricing has more to do with hype and shelf stability (the Lindt expires in June 2025) than anything else. I won’t be rushing to buy it again. I can eat more chocolate than most and I think it would take me a while to get through it.
But then again, if they came out with a dark chocolate version, I would happily part with a tenner. So bring it on, Lindt.
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Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( I tried Dubai style Lindt, the £10 chocolate bar Waitrose rations – I felt queasy )
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