The product was created in 2021 by a confectioner named Sarah Hamouda, who took her inspiration from a pregnancy craving for chocolate combined with pistachio and enlisted the Filipino chef Nouel Catis Omamalin to concoct the recipe.

Really, though, “created” is a strong word, since people across the Middle East have been making pistachio sweets for centuries, so “popularized” would be closer to the mark. Initially, the product wasn’t called “Dubai chocolate” at all, but the clunkier and more annoying name “Can’t Get Knafeh Of It,” after the “knafeh” filling.

Hamouda’s company did business in Dubai in relative obscurity until 2023, when an influencer named Maria Vehera—whose content revolves around trying different foods and restaurants in the United Arab Emirates—went viral with a TikTok video about the candy. Other influencers copied Vehera, as they do, and before long Dubai chocolate was a full-blown fad.

Seems to be a natural occurring fad.