If you’re still aboard the viral Dubai chocolate fad – which is actually a pistachio-and-phyllo fad – Harvard Square is where you want to go. It may not fulfill your cravings, though, so much as offer a taste.
As usual, social media got things rolling, focused in August on the “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” bar from Dubai’s online-only Fix Dessert Chocolatier. TikTokers who managed to get their hands on one showed how the thick bars could be broken apart to reveal a rich, green mix filling that came oozing lusciously out. The world, more or less, went mad for it, and the bars (and their variations) were everywhere and nowhere, strangely elusive even in foodie paradises such as Cambridge, New York and Berkeley, California.
It didn’t help that our local chocolate maker, Spindler Confections of North Cambridge, has opted out of exerting the energy to perfect a knockoff when owner Jeremy Spindler knows the world will soon move on. And to some degree has: He got dozens of calls in late summer and early fall about the bars, none by November, he said – though he admitted that a pistachio-butter-filled truffle was among his most popular. (And, Cambridge Day can testify, is superb.)
Maybe that’s because locals realized where they could turn: Cardullo’s, the gourmet shop in Harvard Square.
Since shortly after the bar went viral, the store began selling – and selling out of – a version by Oasis Treasures that goes for $12, general manager Una Donegan said Wednesday. In fact, “we’ve been selling more pistachio products since,” including the creamy pistachio butter that gets mixed with the crunchy, toasted dough for the filling, she said. (Some will specify that what the world has learned as “knafeh” dough is “kataifi” and not phyllo, and opinions vary on whether the shreds are made from phyllo or their own thing; that kataifi is spun from its mixed ingredients, not shredded from phyllo.)
The bars were expected back at Cardullo’s at the end of the month after shelves were stripped of the bar in a holiday buying spree, she said. (Some Oasis bars were also subject to a salmonella recall in mid-December. No bars at Cardullo’s were subject to the recall, Donegan said.) But an additional delay in shipping has meant no Oasis bars until Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day.
These are, sadly, not the luxuriously oozing Dubai bars of TikTok. It’s just a fairly ordinary bar that suggests the decadence of the flavor without delivering on it. That decadence awaits online.
The same Oasis bars are for sale across the street at Le Macaron for $11.85. More interesting is that the cookie and gelato shop offers a Dubai Chocolate Latte for $8.51 – a placard for which shows a Dubai bar of the kind that Le Macaron doesn’t sell.
Meanwhile, Saloniki Greek, an eatery with two locations in Cambridge, said Jan. 21 that it was jumping on the craze with three products, mixing pistachios or pistachio butter with toasted kataifi to go on frozen yogurt, as a topping for the fried-dough loukoumades or as a “Dubai chocolate cookie” made by chef Jody Adams. The pistachio cream, which is mixed with white chocolate, is inside a chocolate chip cookie base; pistachios and kataifi also go on top. The cookies are $5 each.
The trio of treats came about when business partner Eric Papachristos came to her and said “you have to create a cookie, you have to do something,” Adams recalled. “Do something really fun with this.”
Then Somerville’s Union Square Donuts, which has a location in Harvard Square, tested a doughnut with a Dubai-inspired filling in late January and introduced it Wednesday, selling a bar-style pastry absolutely packed with the stuff for $6.50. The test doughnut sold out online before doors opened at bricks-and-mortar locations, the company said. In addition to the filling of pistachio cream and toasted kataifi, chef Christa LiTrenta tops the treat with a chocolate glaze and a yellow-green splatter (“reminiscent of Jackson Pollock,” the company said, but also of the bars). “We worked for months to source and develop the perfect pistachio cream, craft a topping that’s both decadent and reminiscent of a chocolate bar yet holds true to a doughnut glaze, and create a design that honors the original Dubai Chocolate Bar while making it our own. After nearly a dozen trials and errors, we landed on a combination that hits all the marks,” said Noah Danoff, co-founder of the chain.
As of now the doughnut is on the menu until Feb. 26. “We are talking about extending it as the demand keeps growing and growing,” Danoff said.
Dubai elsewhere in Cambridge
The Violette gluten-free dairy in Neighborhood 9 has also begun selling a Dubai chocolate bar in dairy and nondairy versions. They are compact bars with less of the pistachio and kataifi filling than many bars, including even the Oasis bars, and a filling that emphasizes the pistachio butter over the crunch of the dough. The bar has a more even balance of filling and chocolate shell, making for less of the decadent ooze than gets played up by videos and photos of the original treats; this is a dessert for people looking for only a moderate amount of the filling that made it famous. Each are $10.
There’s also a “Dubai chocolate” jar cake at Cafe Phinista in Porter Square for $15. The Dubai of it all is the middle layer of six. While staff says response has been good despite the price, the shop isn’t committed to stocking it beyond a few months while they get a sense of whether demand will keep justifying it. A tasting in February suggests, well, maybe not: It’s a thick, heavy serving in which the flavors that serve as its inspiration have a finely ground texture too unlike the bar to fulfill the same appetite, a disappointment in a place with such superior Vietnamese fare. The dessert also suffers from being served at essentially room temperature; it might do better chilled.
Cardullo’s Gourmet Shoppe, 6 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge
Le Macaron, 1374 Massachusetts Ave. Suite 101, Harvard Square, Cambridge
Saloniki Greek, 24 Dunster St., Harvard Square, Cambridge (and 181 Massachusetts Ave., The Port, Cambridge)
Union Square Donuts, 15 John F. Kennedy St., Harvard Square, Cambridge (and in Somerville at two locations: 20 Bow St., Union Square; and Assembly Row, 457 Grand Union Blvd., Assembly Square)
This post was updated Jan. 24, 2025, to clarify that no Oasis chocolate bars at Cardullo’s were subject to a recall. It was updated Jan. 28-29 and Feb. 8 and Feb. 15, 2025, with new store sales information and a photo replacement. It was updated Feb. 16, 2025, to add Le Macaron.
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