Kunafa is a Middle Eastern dessert made from shredded pastry called kadayif or from fine semolina dough, layered with soft white cheese or cream, baked in butter until golden, then soaked in sugar syrup. It is always served hot, which is what gives it the cheese pull people film for social media. The dessert comes from the Levant, and both Nablus in Palestine and Hatay in Turkey are known for their own distinct versions.
The dessert you have already seen, even if you have not eaten it
Sometime in 2024, a chocolate bar from Dubai took over everyone's feed. Thick bar, cracked open on camera, bright green pistachio filling spilling out with an audible crunch.
That crunch was kunafa.
The filling in that bar is shredded kadayif pastry, toasted in butter and mixed with pistachio cream. It is the same pastry that has been used across the Middle East for centuries to make the dessert we are talking about here. A viral chocolate bar introduced millions of people to a texture their grandparents in Nablus, Antakya and Cairo would have recognised instantly.
So the dessert did not appear out of nowhere. It just finally got its moment.
Let us break down what it actually is.
What is kunafa made of?
Four things do all the work.
| Component | What it is | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Kadayif pastry | Wheat dough spun into fine strands, like shredded wheat | Gives the crunch and the golden top |
| Soft white cheese | Unsalted or desalted fresh cheese, sometimes clotted cream instead | Gives the stretch and cuts the sweetness |
| Butter or ghee | Brushed through the pastry before baking | Toasts the strands and carries the flavour |
| Sugar syrup | Sugar, water, lemon, often rose or orange blossom water | Soaks in while hot and holds everything together |
Crushed pistachio goes on top. That is the whole dessert.
Some versions swap the shredded pastry for a fine semolina dough, which bakes into a smoother, denser base instead of a crisp one. In Palestine that smooth version is called na'ama and the shredded one is khishneh. Both are correct. They are just different textures of the same idea.
What makes kunafa unusual is the cheese. Most people are not expecting a savoury ingredient in a syrup-soaked dessert. That contrast is the entire point. Sweet syrup, salty-ish cheese, crunchy pastry, all at once.
Kunafa origin: where the dessert actually comes from
The short answer is the Levant, the region covering modern Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The longer answer is more contested, and anyone who tells you it belongs to exactly one country is selling something.
Here is what is reasonably established:
- Descriptions of a syrup-soaked pastry dessert of this family appear in medieval Arabic cookery writing, which places its roots firmly in the Arab culinary tradition rather than anywhere else.
- Nablus, Palestine is the city most associated with the dessert worldwide. Knafeh Nabulsiyeh uses local white Nabulsi cheese, an orange-tinted pastry top, and a syrup scented with rose or orange blossom. It is sold by weight, cut from enormous round trays, and eaten standing up.
- Egypt has a strong Ramadan association with kunafa going back to the Fatimid period. In Cairo the dessert is inseparable from the fasting month, and versions there run sweeter and often use cream rather than cheese.
- Turkey, specifically Hatay and the city of Antakya, produces künefe. This version is thinner, made with a fresh unsalted stretchy cheese, cooked in a shallow copper pan over direct heat rather than baked, and served with clotted cream on the side.
So who invented it? Nobody can prove that cleanly, and the argument tends to say more about politics than pastry. What is fair to say is that the dessert is Levantine in origin, that Nablus made it famous, and that Turkey developed a genuinely distinct version rather than a copy.
At Anatolia we serve it in the Turkish style, which is what our kitchen knows best.
Kunafa, knafeh, künefe: same dessert, different spelling
The spelling confusion trips up almost everyone searching for this.
| Spelling | Where you will see it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kunafa / Kunafah | Gulf, general English usage | Most common spelling online |
| Knafeh / Kanafeh | Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan | Closest to the Arabic pronunciation |
| Künefe | Turkey | The Turkish version, pan-cooked, thinner |
| Kadayif / Kadaif | Turkey, Greece, Balkans | Refers to the shredded pastry itself, not the finished dessert |
They all point to the same family of dessert. If a menu says knafeh and you searched kunafa, you found the right thing.
How do you say kunafa in English?
There is no real English name for it. It gets described rather than translated, usually as shredded pastry cheese dessert or Middle Eastern cheese pastry. Neither does it justice.
The word itself comes from Arabic. One common explanation traces it to a root meaning to shelter or to flank, describing how the pastry encloses the cheese. Pronounce it koo-NAA-fah and you will be understood anywhere from Beirut to Bussorah Street.
What does kunafa taste like?
Sweet first, then salty, then buttery.
The syrup hits immediately and it is properly sweet, no apology for that. Half a second later the cheese comes through with a mild savoury note that stops the whole thing from being cloying. Underneath is toasted butter and wheat, closer to a good pastry crust than to cake.
Texture matters more than flavour here. The top layer shatters. The middle is soft and slightly chewy. The cheese stretches when you pull your fork away, and it should stretch a good few inches if the dessert is fresh and hot.
If you like the sweet-salty combination of salted caramel, you will get on with kunafa immediately.
Do you eat kunafa warm or cold?
Warm. Always warm, and preferably straight from the oven or pan.
This is not a preference, it is structural. The cheese inside kunafa is only stretchy while it is hot. Once it cools it firms up, the pull disappears, and the syrup-soaked pastry starts to go soft. Cold kunafa is not inedible, it is just a different and much less interesting dessert.
Reheating in a pan or oven brings back most of the crunch. A microwave will not. It steams the pastry and you end up with something soggy.
This is also why kunafa is one of the few desserts genuinely better eaten in a restaurant than ordered for delivery. Twenty minutes in a container works against everything the dish is trying to do.
Kunafa vs baklava: which should you order?
Both are syrup-soaked, both use pistachio, both come at the end of a Turkish meal. They are not remotely the same experience.
| Kunafa | Baklava | |
|---|---|---|
| Pastry | Shredded strands or semolina dough | Thin phyllo sheets, stacked |
| Filling | Soft cheese or cream | Chopped nuts |
| Served | Hot | Room temperature |
| Texture | Crunchy top, soft stretchy centre | Crisp and flaky throughout |
| Sweetness | Sweet with a savoury counterweight | Straightforwardly sweet |
| Best for | Sharing, one showstopper dessert | Nibbling, coffee, taking home |
Order kunafa when you want an event at the end of the meal. Order baklava when you want something you can pick at while the conversation carries on.
Ordering both is also a completely respectable decision.
Is kunafa good for health?
It is a dessert built from butter, sugar syrup, cheese and wheat. Nobody is eating it for the nutrition.
Being straight about it: kunafa is calorie dense, high in sugar, and contains gluten and dairy. Portion size varies enormously between a small home slice and a restaurant tray, so any single calorie figure you see quoted online is close to meaningless without knowing the portion it refers to.
What is actually useful to know:
- A restaurant portion is designed to be shared between two people, sometimes more.
- The cheese contributes protein and fat, which makes it more filling than an equivalent amount of cake. You are less likely to want a second one.
- Unsweetened Turkish tea alongside it cuts the sugar noticeably. This is why it is served that way and not out of tradition alone.
- If you are managing blood sugar, treat it the way you would treat any syrup-based dessert. Share it, eat it slowly, and do it after a proper meal rather than on an empty stomach.
Eaten occasionally, as a shared dessert at the end of a meal, it is fine. That is exactly how it has been eaten for hundreds of years.
How to eat kunafa properly
Use a fork and eat it hot. That is genuinely most of it. A few things that improve the experience:
- Pull slowly on the first bite. The cheese stretch is part of the dish and it disappears within a few minutes of the plate landing.
- Do not let it sit. Talk after, not during. Ten minutes is the window.
- Drink Turkish tea with it, served without sugar. The tannin resets your palate between bites. Turkish coffee works the same way if you prefer something stronger.
- Share it. Two to three people per portion is normal, and it is more enjoyable that way.
- Take the pistachio. Do not scrape it off. The nut and the salt in the cheese are doing the same job.
Where the viral chocolate bar fits in
Back to the internet moment, because it changed what people expect.
The Dubai-made pistachio bar that went viral in 2024 took the kadayif pastry out of kunafa, toasted it, folded it into pistachio cream, and sealed it in chocolate. It kept the crunch and dropped the cheese, the syrup and the heat.
It is a good product. It is also a completely different thing.
What people who chase the bar are actually chasing is that toasted-pastry crunch, and kunafa is where it comes from. If you liked the bar, the original will make more sense to you than you expect. It is warmer, less sweet than you would guess, and the cheese adds a dimension the chocolate version cannot reach.
Where to eat kunafa on Arab Street
At Anatolia, kunafa comes out of the kitchen hot, topped with crushed pistachio, made with 100% halal ingredients like everything else on our menu. We are at 58 Arab Street, a two-minute walk from Sultan Mosque.
Two versions on the menu:
- Kunafa Plain at $19.90, the traditional one, cheese and syrup and pastry.
- Kunafa with Ice Cream, same base, cold scoop on top. The temperature contrast is the appeal, and it is the version most first-timers pick.
One portion works for two people, three if you have already worked through a mixed grill. Order it at the same time as your Turkish tea and it will arrive at the right moment.
Kitchen runs until midnight, so this also works as a late dessert stop after everything else on the street has closed.
Related reading:
- Lebanese Food in Singapore: The Dishes Worth Hunting Down
- What Is Mezze? A Beginner's Table Guide
- Full dessert menu
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is kunafa so famous?
Two reasons. It has been a centrepiece dessert at celebrations, weddings and Ramadan tables across the Middle East for centuries, so it carries real cultural weight. More recently, the viral pistachio chocolate bar introduced its signature crunchy pastry to a global audience who had never heard of it before.
Is kunafa the same as knafeh?
Yes. Kunafa, knafeh, kanafeh and künefe are different transliterations of the same Arabic word. Turkish künefe is a distinct regional version, thinner and pan-cooked, but it belongs to the same family.
Is kunafa high in sugar?
Yes. The syrup soaking is central to the dessert and it is not a low-sugar dish under any preparation. Sharing a portion between two or three people is the sensible approach.
Do you eat kunafa warm or cold?
Warm. The cheese only stretches while hot, and the pastry loses its crunch as it cools. Reheat in a pan or oven if needed, never a microwave.
Is kunafa or baklava better?
Different jobs. Kunafa is hot, cheesy and dramatic, best shared as a single dessert. Baklava is room temperature, nutty and crisp, better for picking at over coffee.
Are baklava and kunafa the same?
No. Baklava uses stacked sheets of thin phyllo pastry with chopped nuts between them. Kunafa uses shredded pastry strands or semolina dough with cheese or cream in the middle, and it is served hot.
What is the best way to try kunafa for the first time?
Order it at a restaurant rather than getting it delivered, ask for it fresh, and drink unsweetened tea alongside. The version with ice cream is a gentler introduction if you are unsure about the cheese.
Does kunafa contain gluten and dairy?
Yes to both. The pastry is wheat-based and the filling is cheese or cream. It is not suitable for anyone avoiding gluten or dairy.
The short version
Kunafa is shredded pastry, soft cheese, butter and sugar syrup, baked hot and eaten immediately. It came out of the Levant, Nablus made it famous, Turkey made its own version, and a chocolate bar made the whole world curious about it forty years too late.
The internet version is a snack. The real one is an event.
See it on the dessert menu or book a table at 58 Arab Street.
