The clean snap of milk chocolate reveals a mossy green compote of crunchy pistachio kataifi filling, emitting a slightly sweet and nutty aroma.

This is Dubai Chocolate—or rather, a homemade, Dubai-style version crafted in the kitchen of Palo Alto High School junior Camila Luz, who was inspired by the viral sensation sweeping social media.

The trend first caught Luz’s attention when her dad brought her an authentic bar from a business trip to Dubai.  According to Luz, unfortunately the taste didn’t reach her expectations.

“It [the chocolate] honestly didn’t taste good and I wondered why people were hyping it up so much,” Luz said. 

Having a background in cooking, Luz decided to try to make the bars herself, by purchasing chocolate from Trader Joe’s and the rest of the supplies such as kataifi and pistachio paste from Amazon. According to Luz, developing her own way of making the bars came out better than the original.

“I started developing my own way of making it [Dubai-style chocolate] and I had let my friends and family try it, and they said it was way better than Dubai Chocolate from Dubai,” Luz said. 

Motivated by her friends and family’s approval Luz made a few more batches all wrapped in green foil and topped with a gold ribbon for the Palo Alto community to enjoy. Voila! A masterpiece. With a finished product, Luz began to sell Dubai-style chocolate on her Instagram page “recipeswithcami,”.

Luz’s main market has been Palo Alto High School students to whom she has sold around 30 bars. According to customer Palo Alto High School junior Asha Patil, the purchasing process of Luz’s chocolate was smooth and considerate.

“She [Luz] communicated with me and communicated the price, and it was pretty professional,” Patil said. “I also mentioned that I don’t like milk chocolate, so she substituted dark chocolate, and it was really good.”

The bars, which weigh half a pound and are priced at $15, are worth every cent, Patil said.

“The taste is really good and not overly sweet,” Patil said. “The appearance is geometric and it has the sheen of well-tempered chocolate.”

Luz’s interest in chocolate-making didn’t appear out of nowhere. Growing up in the kitchen with her grandma Vera Julião in Brazil, Luz’s love for cooking and experimenting started at a young age. According to Luz, Julião was her greatest inspiration, creating her own recipes and writing them down in a cookbook that she later passed on to Luz.

“She [Julião] handed her cookbook down to me and I’ve been on a journey to do all her recipes from her cookbook,” Luz said. “She’s been my biggest inspiration.” 

According to Luz, coming from a family of chefs, cooking became more than a hobby, it was a way to stay connected to her roots.

“My aunt had a bakery in Brazil and she’s a famous chef there,” Luz said. “I also come from a line of bakers and chefs and that’s something that stuck with me, just to be in the kitchen.” 

According to Luz, she decided to start selling her version of Dubai-style chocolate so that in the future she could be more financially independent. 

“I wanted to make more money so that I could save up for buying a car and help my parents pay for it,” Luz said. “Also, I just really wanted to make money for myself and feel more independent”.

One of Luz’s greatest obstacles is expanding her customer base, but she said for now as a new business she doesn’t mind having a smaller but reliable circle of buyers. 

“Having a small range of Paly and Gunn (High School) students makes it hard to push [ product] to more people,” Luz said. “But I don’t mind that, I really like to have close people buy it and have new people try it. It’s nice.”

Luz hopes to continue to pursue cooking in the future by getting her associate’s degree in culinary arts at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Napa Valley and then a bachelor’s in food business management at the CIA in New York. According to Luz, her chocolate business is just a stepping stone toward her culinary dreams.

“I hope to open my own cafe and bakery,” Luz said. “If more people say they like it [the chocolate bars] and it gets more hyped, it will aid my future goals.”