The rich, trendy and tasty Dubai chocolate strawberry cup trend has been keeping the Qarqouz family extremely busy over the last month.
The family, who own Damascus Shawarma on Lasalle Boulevard in New Sudbury, is now spending Saturday mornings prepping the infamous dessert cups.
“I get up at 4 a.m. on Saturdays and by 5 a.m. we begin making about 500 Dubai chocolate strawberry cups in six to seven hours and are sold out by five that evening,” Muhammad Qarqouz said.
Muhammad, the son of owner Hussein Qarqouz, said the cups are only made on Saturdays to ensure strawberries can be freshly sliced, which involves a staff of five working in the wee hours of the morning.
“In Week One, we made 150 cups. Week Two, we had 500 cups sold out and now this weekend we have 650 cups prepared for sale,” he said recently.
The rich chocolate, pistachio and strawberry cup was inspired by the Dubai chocolate trend that itself went viral in 2021. Dubai chocolate is a kind of chocolate bar made from milk chocolate with a filling composed of sweet cream, pistachios, finely chopped kadayif (thin, shredded phyllo pastry) and tahini paste.
It was created by chocolatier Sarah Hamouda in 2021 for Fix Dessert and marketed under the name “Can’t Get Knafeh of It.” Dubai chocolate went viral last year and then earlier in 2025, the strawberry cup dessert version began appearing on social media.
Sudbury.com hasn’t been able to find the original source for the strawberry cup version.
While the cup style dessert costs $12.99, Qarquoz said it is expensive to make.
“I bring in Swiss chocolate and a premium pistachio paste shipped in from Jordan,” he said. “None of these ingredients are cheap by any means and then add the strawberries and the manual labour.”
The restaurant also is making the Dubai chocolate bars that inspired the dessert cups around the clock, too.
“I can make 1,000 per day and it still won’t be enough,” Qarquoz said.
The Sudbury restaurant, which has been known for its shawarma since 2018, is getting great feedback for its desserts, he added.
“People are commenting on how delicious the cups are. They say it is a refreshing treat and, of course, the young people love taking pictures with their cups because it has become so popular,” Qarquoz said.
He said he tried his first cup in Mississauga a while back but found that while the price was much higher and the portion size was larger, the quality just wasn’t there.
Damascus staff wanted to go with something a bit smaller given the sweetness of the product. They landed on a nine-ounce layered serving.
The Qarqouz family arrived in Sudbury about 15 years ago after losing their home and bakery in their homeland of Syria during the civil war there.
Muhammad Qarquoz was 9 when the family left Syria. He said pistachio desserts always rank of high importance in his household.
“My mother still makes the best shortbread cookies that are dipped in chocolate and pistachio,” he said.
Damascus is not the only shop in Sudbury satisfying the Dubai strawberry cup trend. Huckleberries Chocolatier in the downtown core is also on board. Huckleberries take pre-orders while Damascus has cups available on Saturdays only.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s Eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.