Cases and shelves full of colorful chocolates and elegant macarons greet visitors to chef Jean-Marie Auboine’s chocolate showroom on Harmon Avenue. Lately, there’s a new attraction on display: the hefty Dubai chocolate, more than three times the size of a regular chocolate bar, sitting front and center.
The pistachio, ground sesame (tahini), and shredded phyllo dough filling at the center of the Dubai chocolate experience went viral on TikTok in December 2023 after influencer Maria Vehera posted a video of herself enjoying one made by the Dubai-based creator Sarah Hamouda of Fix Dessert Chocolatier. As Neda Ulaby reported for NPR, the bars, which are similar to KitKats, are likely to remain a fixture in American sweet shops. Dubai chocolate found its way to the Las Vegas market in 2024, inspiring variations in lattes, croissants, and cookies. While locals responded enthusiastically to the Dubai chocolate bars, some expressed concerns about potential scams.
At the time when it trended, Fix brand Dubai chocolate was only available in the United Arab Emirates. This exclusivity sparked global curiosity and demand. Social media creators began posting clips of themselves making imitations at home and then, like Vehera, breaking the bar apart to reveal oozing pistachio cream. The craze also left many wondering where they could purchase the chocolate, prompting some in the U.S. to capitalize on the allure. In an email interview with today.com, Hamouda, who calls it the Hermès bag of chocolates, cautioned consumers to be wary of resellers and price gougers.
In Las Vegas, Kim’s Kreative Sweets, a self-proclaimed female- and veteran-owned business operating under a cottage food permit, created her own version to fill the need. Kim occasionally shared updates on Instagram about having to pause orders to catch up with demand. Sanuelle Mendoza, owner of Sweeties Shop LV, also joined the trend. As of this reporting, both appear inactive on their Dubai chocolate social media accounts. Neither Kim nor Mendoza responded to our requests for comment.
Auboine, who has been in the dessert industry for 40 years and a chocolatier the past 20, says dishonesty happens. “When it's something actually working well and very popular,” he says, “you always can have people who try to take advantage of that.”
He initially hesitated when his sales and marketing team approached him in the spring of 2024 about producing a Dubai chocolate bar. Despite receiving daily calls from customers asking about it, Auboine didn’t want to create one because it was trendy or to “copy something.”
However, he owned a retail shop at the Waldorf Astoria in Qatar a few years ago and is knowledgeable about the Middle Eastern market. So, it made sense Auboine would eventually comply with his team’s request and concoct his own version. “I said, ‘If we do it, we do it in limited quantity, and we do it right, and we try to bring it to the next level,’” he says. “And it’s what we did.”
Auboine’s Dubai chocolate launched in December, following months of research and development, he says. It’s priced at $46, and proceeds benefit Pasadena Humane to support animals affected by the Los Angeles wildfires. He justifies the price by highlighting the rising costs of chocolate, the premium quality of the ingredients he uses — such as what he calls the “Rolls-Royce” of pistachio paste, imported directly from Sicily — along with labor, quality control testing, loss prevention, packaging, and size.
According to Auboine, he is the only artisan chocolatier in Las Vegas that is making Dubai chocolate on site. This allows customers to sample it alongside his other offerings before purchase.
That’s one way to both guarantee delivery and attract customers to … the next candy trend.