One moment you’re scrolling through TikTok, and the next you’re searching for ‘pistachio kunafa chocolate’ on Talabat, an online food delivery app, or Google. The online food community thrives on this pattern—constantly hopping from one viral trend or ingredient to the next. Viral TikTok recipes are reshaping menus in households worldwide, while also influencing new product launches in restaurants and stores. This summer, a shop in Dubai gained viral fame on TikTok for its distinctive chocolate bar. Dubbed the “Dubai Chocolate Bar” by TikTok users, this milk chocolate delight is filled with pistachios and knafeh (or kunafa), a crispy, shredded phyllo pastry which is traditional in Middle Eastern cuisine. The chocolate has gained such viral popularity that it is now one of the most searched items on Google in Germany, with even factories in New York importing it. In the western German city of Aachen, hundreds of shoppers lined up for hours on a drizzly day just to try the new chocolate bar. Last month, Deliveroo, a British online food delivery service in the UK, announced that this Dubai chocolate bar had become the most popular dish globally. But what…
