Are you being scammed by the viral Dubai Chocolate Bar?

If you bought it in the US, the answer is probably yes.

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There's a crunchy, gooey, nutty treat that's been taking over social media feeds this year, and it's a very special candy bar. Colloquially known as the “Dubai chocolate bar,” this milk chocolate candy is filled with crunchy knafeh – finely grated puff pastry – and a creamy pistachio spread. With its contrasting textures and soft interior, the bar can easily create ASMR-esque sounds when you break it in half, revealing decadent blobs of filling, readying it for TikTok and Instagram.

In fact, home cooks post videos of themselves making Dubai chocolate all year round. The hashtag #dubaichocolate has been used 45,500 times on Instagram and when you scroll through the feed you see nothing but green and brown chocolate-pistachio combinations. The prevalence of this one dessert made me wonder: Where did it originate and why is it a “Dubai” chocolate bar? So I set out on a journey into the depths of the internet to find out.

Related: The Best Dark Chocolate Bars, According to Our Tests

The now-famous candy first went viral in December 2023 when Dubai-based food influencer Maria Vehera posted a video reviewing the chocolate bar – to date, her TikTok has racked up 80.7 million views. Vehera bought the chocolate bar from Fix Dessert Chocolatier, a local manufacturer in Dubai that offers bars with creative and often textured fillings, such as the brand's “Cereously Chewy,” which includes chewy fudge brownies with milk chocolate granola and, of course, the ” Can't Get Knafeh of It,” which is now known online as the “Dubai candy bar.”

According to CNN, Fix was founded by 38-year-old entrepreneur Sarah Hamouda, who started the brand as a side hustle in 2021 after being inspired by her desire to conceive. One of the most important (and tragic) things to know about Fix's pistachio and knafeh candy is that it is only Available via delivery in Dubai.

Related: Our 42 Best Chocolate Dessert Recipes

The candy bar gained notoriety so quickly that fraudsters and counterfeit candy manufacturers quickly seized the opportunity to capitalize on it. While researching the bar made by Fix, I came across a website that appeared to belong to the chocolatier. To see if the bars could be shipped to the United States, I added some to my shopping cart – the website told me I had to buy at least 10 of them to check out – and entered my shipping information. When I was only shown payment options like Apple gift cards and ATM deposits, I became suspicious and immediately left the site. It goes without saying that I will not be linking to this website.

At that time, I went straight to Fix's Instagram page, where I came across a very clear statement that the small company has no website, physical store or authorized resellers and that its products are emphatically only for sale through Deliveroo in Dubai.

Equally noteworthy is Fix's note that there are no authorized resellers of the chocolate bars. Amazon is full of knockoffs of the treat, many of which have poor reviews, and online retailers like Nuts Factory sell something similar – they rather darkly call it “Dubai Chocolate” without referencing Fix – but it's not the same as the original . And as the brand notes, retailers who have managed to get their hands on the real candy are “not storing the fix dessert bars in the right conditions and selling them for…” [three times] the price.”

If you don't live in Dubai and want to try the most famous dessert, it might be best to just make it at home. There are plenty of influencers who give clear instructions on how to recreate the candy bar, but I would recommend finding one that includes tahini in their recipe, an ingredient in the Fix original that many content creators seem to leave out.

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