It’s time to make some space for choc-filled delights in your busy chockfull calendar, dear Chocoholics. July 7 is World Chocolate Day, which means you’ll find us bingeing guilt-free on the brown stuff time at one of these places with the 10 best chocolate desserts in Dubai. From the best hot chocolate in town to the most decadent cookies, this list is perfect if you’re cuckoo about cacao. And if you’re not, these dessert places will convert your opinions about the confection. Better choco-late than never.
1. Mirzam
The home-grown artisanal chocolate makers in Al Quoz are the UAE’s first bean-to-bar chocolatiers. Named after a star, they’re one of the brightest of UAE’s artisanal chocolate factories. Raw cacao beans are ground into addictive chocolate bars infused with nuts, and spices and come in white, milk chocolate and dark chocolate variants.
Those scrumptious chocolate bars are also used to make divine desserts such as scoops of Mirzam Dark Chocolate Soft Serve. Wanna really live out your Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fantasy? Mirzam is hosting free factory tours on July 7, 8 and 9. Bonus, there’s no golden ticket (or sinister Willie Wonka), it’s free! From 11am-8pm.
📍4th St. Al Quoz 3, behind Audi showroom
2. Angelina
This Parisian tearoom and patisserie’s Dubai outpost is considered the gold standard of hot chocolate in the city, and with good reason. Every order of their signature L’African hot chocolate results in thick, molten chocolate poured out of a jug with a dollop of cream on the side.
We prefer glugging it down neat without thinning the sinfully silky drink. Its secret lies in a 100-year-old recipe that involves a gourmet trinity of three types of African cocoa handpicked from Niger, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Sweet dreams are made of this drink and you don’t even have to travel the seven seas for it. Just Dubai Mall’s fashion avenue.
📍Ground Floor at The Dubai Mall, Fashion Avenue, near Zara
3. Al Nassma, Deira Souk
It would border on unpatriotic if we didn’t include the world’s first camel-milk chocolates here on this list. Wander into the heart of Deira souk and you’ll find the chocolate brand’s boutique choc-full of low-fat, low-sugar, low-lactose chocolatey yumminess. Although Al Nassma are popular Duty-Free souvenirs at DXB Airport, we say buy a box today and treat yo’ self.
Living up to its name which is Arabic for ‘refreshing desert breeze’, this local chocolate brand unique and adventurous alternative for chocolate fans. Some are shaped like a camel, some are plain old cubes stuffed with Arabic spices and dates. But they’re all creamy smooth bites that will have chocolate connoisseurs over the hump… oops we mean moon.
📍 Al Nassma next to Gold Souk Main Gate 1 in Sikka 39
4. Godiva Cafe
Picking just one item off the menu of this luxury Belgian chocolate house as the best desserts in Dubai is torment. Do we save our calories for pancakes dripping with chocolate sauce? Or do we settle for the more sophisticated yet decadent treat of strawberries dipped in chocolates? There’s also the criminally good Sin Cake, which quite tastes sooo good we’ll gleefully cop to the deadly sin of gluttony. Choices, choices…
However, it’s only right that on World Chocolate Day, you go full-blown chocolate. And that mission is met with Godiva’s Chocolate Martini Brownie. Cake bathed in smoother-than-butter chocolate topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and served up in a Martini glass will have dessert lovers shaken (and stirred) to the core.
📍 City Walk, Mall of the Emirates and Rixos Premium Dubai, JBR
5. The Kakao Guy
This Dubai-born local chocolate shop functions out of a closed kitchen in Deira but you can shop for their treats online. The Kakao Guy’s (whose real name is Lee) claim to fame is being the city’s first outlet to whip up decadent Nama chocolates – the Japanese ganache fad that has chocolate lovers around the globe melting.
Imports of this Southeast Asian delicacy usually come at an eyewatering price, but Lee’s homegrown creations pack the punch without hurting your wallet. That instantly makes them one of the best chocolate desserts in Dubai. Besides, Nama they’ve got a slew of other sweet treats you’ll want to indulge in too – the Basque burnt cheesecake is a hero item that comes in various flavour. We’ve got a sweet spot for the mocha burnt cheesecake as it pairs two of our favourites – coffee and choco – in cheesecake form.
📍 The Kakao Guy pop-up store in Burjuman, Cinema Level
6. GF Ferre Chocolate Bar
You know you’re in good hands when a restaurant that serves hearty main courses has chosen to name itself after chocolate. Skip the starters and mains and dive right into the dessert at this Mall of the Emirates eatery with the Maltesers Fondant. It’s a delicious mess of crunchy Maltesers chocolate balls, ice cream nuts and chocolate syrup spilling over a thin chocolate fence.
The collapse of this dessert is one of the most visually satisfying disasters ever and your tastebuds will thank you for it. In the mood for more delicious destruction? GF Ferre’s Chocolate Lava Cake is delightful for a gourmet rampage.
📍 Level 1, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai
7. Home Bakery
Home Bakery is a Dubai institution whose famed Chewy Melt chocolate cookie dimes have turned even the most dessert-averse of us into cookie monsters. ‘Tiny drops of heaven’ are also a term we use to describe them around the Secret Dubai office and we don’t say it lightly, dear reader. They truly embody the scientific name of chocolate, ‘Theobroma Cacao’ (food of the gods) and are definitely one of the best chocolate desserts in Dubai.
These legendary coin-sized cookies also come in a bigger dimension. But size doesn’t matter when it comes to Emirati baker Hind Al Mulla’s cookies which are chewy and moist on the inside with a cracked hard outer shell. For some fudgy brownies, their cheekily-named PMS Brownies hit the spot at all times of the month.
📍Various outlets in d3, Galleria Mall, The Dubai Mall and more
8. Alison Nelson’s Chocolate Bar
This desert haven has plenty of options to get your cacao-based sugar high. From Oreo Bombs to Midnight Pancakes – stacks of chocolate pancakes dusted with coco powder and drizzled with caramel – that frankly, are good to be eaten 24/7. But what cinches the deal for us at Alison Nelson’s Chocolate Bar is the chocolate fondue. Dunk a range of treats from strawberries to brownie chunks, to bread and banana into a pot of smooth chocolate sauce. We wish we could solve all of life’s problems by drowning them in a pot of molten chocolate.
📍Branches at Dubai Mall and Mercato Mall
9. Hotel Cartagena
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar but not when it’s the chocolate cigar at Hotel Cartagena that we’re talking about. The Latin American restaurant known for its flamboyant decor takes optical illusion desserts to a whole new level of realism. Instead of cake, everything is creamy vanilla ice cream coated in a chocolate shell. Even the “ashes” made of crumbly brown sugar, cocoa and a sprinkling of ginger powder will trick you into believing you could cut the end and start puffing. Don’t though. It’s all smoke and mirrors, without the smoke but oodles of sugar.
📍72nd floor, JW Marriott Marquis Tower, Business Bay
10. Carnival by Tresind
There are no dearth of reasons why you absolutely must visit this Michelin Guide-recognised fusion Indian eatery in DIFC. The plating of every dish is a magnificent pageantry of molecular gastronomy, that feeds your eyes long before the food reaches your mouth. Witnessing their Cacao Trolley chocolate explosion dessert in person is truly one of life’s joys. A white chocolate shell crafted to look like a cacao seed is smashed open on a frozen trolley and a heavenly blend of caramel, chocolate brownies and more spill out.
📍 The Buildings by Daman – 312 Al Sa’ada Street – Za’abeel – DIFC – Dubai