When my new neighbours moved in from Saudi Arabia, they brought sweets with them. During their first Ramadan in their new home, their young sons showed up on my doorstep with trays of cookies and desserts that surprised and delighted me: salty cheese drenched in syrup, pastries coated with rose and orange blossom waters, delicate layers of crackling phyllo. Feeling like I had been a bad neighbour (and as a Ukrainian, my own culture won’t allow me to send a tray back empty), I searched for recipes I could recreate. A decade later, I’m proud to call them friends—and to have fallen in love with so many of their traditional treats.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one. From the viral sensation of Dubai Chocolate Bars, filled with pistachios and kataifi, to the TikTok-fuelled obsession with cheese-pulling knafeh, to the ubiquity of date desserts filling my FYP as healthy alts and cultural mashups (date bark, stuffed dates and date caramels), MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) sweets are everywhere. Why? Perhaps it’s “because they are f–ing delicious,” as Nasr Nasr, the owner of Ottawa dessert and juice bar Juice Dudez, shared.

MENA Sweets Go Viral

In 2020, during the height of lockdown, a gorgeous, doe-eyed, hijabi-wearing woman kept popping up on my TikTok feed. Abir El Saghir balletically moved through her kitchen, wielding her knife and whipping up treats in a way Nara Smith could only dream of. With 29.5 million followers and counting, I thought this wasn’t just cooking, but a performance, a celebration and a masterclass in cultural pride all rolled into one.

Abir wasn’t alone. A wave of MENA content creators (among them Amr El Hady, Cooking with Lamees and Eitan Bernath) were flooding TikTok and Instagram with glossy, syrup-soaked sweets, nostalgic commentary and multi-generational recipes that often never get written down, let alone explained in detail. 

According to global culinary trend forecaster Christine Couvelier, the rise in Middle Eastern treats has been coming for a long time. She said, “This is more than just a trend or a fad. I think this is here to stay. I feel that it started, as many trends are, with culinary tourism and the need to explore and truly ’taste’ the local specialties of a destination.”

And the popularity of Middle Eastern sweets shows no signs of fading. The inescapable virality of the Dubai chocolate bar—so popular it contributed to a 38 per cent increase in tourism bookings to Dubai, according to travel site Destination 2—proves just how far these confections have travelled. When the original is sold out, you can find knockoffs, spin-offs and reimaginings in nearly every corner of the world, no matter how tiny the town.

A Cultured Sweet Tooth 

From barfi in India to plátanos maduros in Colombia, nearly every culture has a way of satisfying its sweet tooth, but in MENA communities, desserts carry an even deeper meaning. 

“In Middle Eastern culture, offering sweets is an act of generosity, warmth and hospitality,” explained Mustafa Al-Siaudi, founder of Palm Bites, a Mississauga-based chocolate company. “When you visit a Middle Eastern home, you’re always greeted with desserts—whether it’s dates, baklava or halva—because sharing food is a way to create bonds. It’s about making guests feel welcomed and valued.” 

While I can grab a plate-sized chocolate chip cookie every time I leave the house thanks to its mass availability and ease (just slice-and-bake from a log of dough; even a just-hired barista can manage it), the same isn’t true for the meticulously made, labour-intensive ma’amoul my friend Nada sends over. She and her daughters spend hours filling each buttery biscuit with a date filling, each one a mini expression of care. 

And as younger generations step into the kitchen, they’re not just preserving these traditions—they’re reinventing them.

Reinvention and Reclamation

When I was first introduced to knafeh as “salty cheese covered in perfumed simple syrup,” my decidedly Western mind palate said, “Hard pass.” It sounded like the love child of a cheesecake and a floral candle. But that’s exactly the point—Middle Eastern desserts are complex and full of contrasting tastes. It’s that tension between sweet and salty, crunchy and creamy, that has us coming back for more.

Al-Siaudi put it best: “Middle Eastern flavours are having a global moment because they offer something both exotic and deeply satisfying. The combination of rich, natural sweetness (from dates), nuttiness (from pistachios, almonds, or tahini) and indulgence (from chocolate) creates a perfect balance of flavour and texture.”

You only need to watch a few episodes of The Bear to know that elite pastry chefs obsess over contrasts—textures, temperatures and flavours—to create craveable dishes. But MENA desserts typically have those competing elements baked into them by design. 

I asked Nasr Nasr why Middle Eastern flavours (including his massively popular take on the Dubai chocolate) are resonating so widely, even beyond the community. He explained, “Food is so simple: if it’s delicious, it will be popular. If it just looks cool, it may be popular for a little while, but the hype will die soon after.”  For more thought-provoking stories and exclusive content, subscribe to 3 magazine’s print and digital editions today!