UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Dubai cafe charges almost 300 US dollars for a chocolate truffle as shoppers bite into luxury retail

Record ID: 759257

  • Title: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Dubai cafe charges almost 300 US dollars for a chocolate truffle as shoppers bite into luxury retail
  • Date: 18th February 2011
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) CHOCOPOLOGIE MANAGING DIRECTOR, YASSINE BENALI, SAYING: "So many things go into those chocolates that, to those who know, will make the price not seem so sky-high. For example you get people who are looking for a birthday present, they could buy a phone for 1000 dirhams (approximately 272 US dollars), which would only get you a very ordinary phone. The
  • Embargoed: 5th March 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates
  • Country: United Arab Emirates
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ICNP8D4ARIEFW7NLSSIESHXD
  • Story Text: Dubai's Chocopologie chocolate shop provides a marked contrast to the situation elsewhere in the Middle East, where unemployment and rising food prices have led to street protests.
    At this exclusive cafe, the city's rich bite into luxury retail with chocolate truffles selling for 272 US dollars a piece.
    Dubai's debt woes and the global financial crisis soured the appetite of the United Arab Emirates' high-end clientele, but the Gulf financial and tourism hub is striving to win back its crown as a world luxury capital.
    Chocopologie claims to sell the world's most expensive truffle "La Madeline au Truffe" for 1,000 dirhams (272 US dollars) a piece. It opened its boutique cafe in Dubai in December and already plans another in Abu Dhabi.
    Managing director Yassine Benali says the truffles are special.
    "The people know truffles as chocolate sprayed with powder, cocoa powder on top. Chocolate with ganache inside it, but this is real real truffle, it has real truffle inside and is covered with real chocolate," said Yassine Benali, Managing Director of Chocopologie, the Middle East franchise of Knipschildt Chocolatier in the US.
    Since Chocopologie opened on December 12, it has sold 17 of its made-to-order hand-whipped truffles, infused with an Ecuadorian single-estate dark chocolate ganache around a rare French Perigord mushroom.
    "The idea came when we (Benali and his wife) started looking for the most expensive chocolate in the world, the most fancy. It was about two or three in the morning when we found these chocolates by Knipschildt Chocolatier in the US, we ordered it and was very well received by people who got the chocolates as presents, so the idea came up that we should bring this to the UAE," Benali said.
    Most of the customers are locals, including many wealthy sheikhas and sheiks who come to hang out in the private lounge where the wealthy and glamourous can sip hot drinks and nibble chocolate delights.
    Dubai, known for opulent hotels and man-made palm-shaped islands, was the second most attractive city in the world for retailers in 2009, just behind London but ahead of Paris and New York, according to a survey by consultancy CB Richard Ellis.
    But retailers in Dubai saw sales slump 45 percent that year when Dubai was hard hit by the global financial crisis and its own real estate crash, according to some industry estimates. Retail started a slow path to recovery in 2010.
    The global recession saw luxury items drop off the shelves in status-conscious Dubai before staging a comeback led by demand by wealthy Emiratis and returning tourists from Russia, China and India, retailers and analysts said.
    Business activity in the UAE private sector hit an 18-month high in January as orders for non-oil goods and services picked up on stronger domestic demand.
    Shelves looked thin on stock at Chocopologie this week as 68 kilograms of chocolate was swept off in the few days running up to Valentine's day. It included sales of five pieces of Chocopologie's trademark truffles.
    Overpriced? certainly not, says Benali.
    "So many things go into those chocolates that, to those who know, it will make the price not seem so sky-high. For example you get people who are looking for a birthday present, they could buy a phone for 1000 dirhams, which would only get you a very ordinary phone, they are expensive these days, or I could buy the most expensive chocolate in the world, with certificate and everything, it's more fun!"
    Other truffles sold in the shop carry names like Antoinette, a dark chocolate heart dipped in white chocolate and French rose water, and Amanda, a dark chocolate with lemon and verbena flavour.
    The most expensive ingredients that go into the luxury truffles are exported from abroad and the truffle is then put together in Dubai. Other chocolates on offer are made and imported from places like New York. Benali's says he wants to develop a facility to make all the chocolates in the UAE.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register