The Absolute Best Dubai Chocolate Bar You Can Buy In The US Has A Salty Surprise

A quality Dubai chocolate bar should include creamy pistachio, crispy kataifi, and rich, flavorful chocolate. Since this now-viral chocolate was first developed by Sarah Hamouda in Dubai in 2021, it has become a global phenomenon, inspiring countless copycats. But not all of the Dubai chocolate that you can buy in the U.S. is created equal.

Tasting Table recently ranked six Dubai chocolate bars that you can buy in the U.S., and one emerged as the victor thanks to its slightly salty surprise. Among the bars we taste-tested were ones by Lindt, BeeMax, Lovetta, Robinson Confections, and Chocolat Uzma. And while we loved Trader Joe's Dubai-inspired Pistachio Dark Chocolate bar, the one that we found superior in every way was the Charles Chocolates Dubai Done Better Original Pistachio Bar.

Our taste-tester found it to have a rich, chocolate base with a surprisingly salty kick. The salt "took this bar to new heights," according to our reviewer. The outer chocolate shell is rich but thin, allowing the pistachio cream and kataifi to take center stage. The filling has a bold pistachio flavor, which is perfectly complemented by the salt. Though you could always make your own decadent Dubai chocolate bar at home, we highly recommend sampling the Dubai chocolate from Charles Chocolates.

Charles Chocolates creates handcrafted, all-natural luxury chocolates. The company was founded by Charles Siegel in 2004, almost a decade after he sold his first chocolate company, Attivo. According to Siegel, his goal is to use the finest ingredients in his chocolate confections. The company was awarded Best Chocolatier in the Bay Area by San Francisco Magazine and the Good Food Award from The Good Food Foundation.

Charles Chocolates says on its website that it was excited to try the viral Dubai chocolate but was "disappointed by how super sugary sweet it was." The goal of creating a Charles Chocolates Dubai chocolate bar was "to make what we think is the ultimate expression of that really cool idea." The chocolate company now makes three versions of its Dubai chocolate bars.

The Original Pistachio Bar, which we tried, has a shell made up of a bittersweet chocolate blend. The filling is pistachio cream that is made from scratch in the company's kitchens from premium nuts, rather than the more affordable pistachio paste substitute used by some chocolate companies. The Pistachio Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache bar pairs the same shell with the chocolatier's signature made-from-scratch pistachio cream. The third bar, Pistachio Milk Chocolate Caramel Bar, is infused with swirls of caramel, as well as a gooey, rich caramel layer alongside the handcrafted pistachio cream.