A street filled with Black Sea’s famous pidecis

Any way you turn, you will see signs advertising “pideci,” meaning a place where pide is made. The shops are small, but their products are famous. You can come across a well-known person on this street on any given day. These restaurants have hosted several state ministers, deputies, businessmen, singers, actors and soccer players. What draws these famous figures to this street is the delicious aroma and taste of pide. Out of curiosity, we enter a pideci and ask, “Why is this place so popular?” The proprietor doesn’t give the secret away, and perhaps in an effort to brush us off, he says: “We bring all the ingredients from where they are grown. We bring some from Trabzon, some from Rize and some from Afyon. The secret is using organic ingredients.”

Yeasted dough needs to rest for at least three hours

We continue to walk down Poyraz Sokak. The first among these stores, which are operated by pide makers who move here from the Black Sea region, is Lider Pide, which opened its doors 19 years ago. The Zor Family moved from Trabzon to Ümraniye in 1991 and set up this small restaurant. Before they moved, the family operated a bakery in Trabzon. Their menu includes pide made with cheese (kaşarlı), ground meat (kıymalı) and braised meat (kavurmalı). The family said most customers prefer the kavurmalı pide, which even attracts people from İzmit, Bursa and Ankara.

According to chef Murat Kartal, the toppings (cheese, meat, butter and eggs) must be organic in order for the pide to taste delicious. Of course, the dough is equally important. When we ask about the dough, he hesitates for a second before telling us, thinking his competitors are going to learn his secret. But then he decides to share a tip with us anyway. “It’s going to be like giving a tip to other store owners, but it’s OK. They can learn and do it, too. It doesn’t matter how fresh or natural the ingredients are; if the dough isn’t good, the pide does not turn out good. The dough must be yeasted. We use fresh yeast. Also, if, for example, we’re going make the pide at 12 noon, then the dough must be prepared by at least 8 a.m.”

We ask how business is, and Kartal says: “We sell 1,000 pides on Sundays. During the weekday, it ranges between 600 and 700. So we use about four to five sacks of flour each day.” Lider Pide’s most popular frequenter is actor Erkan Can, who comes to the restaurant to have pide at least two times a week. Prominent businessman Turgut Aydın holds his monthly “business meetings” with his managers at this restaurant. Singer İsmail Türüt is another patron that comes at least once a week. “In fact, he was just at our other restaurant,” Kartal says. Transportation Minister Binalı Yıldırım and State Minister Faruk Nafiz Özak as well as actors and singers such as Şahan Gökbakar, Levent Ülgen, Sunay Akın, Davut Güloğlu, Haluk Ulusoy, Güvenç Kurtar, Ogün Temizkanoğlu, İbrahim Üzülmez, Şenol Güneş and Hikmet Karaman have also visited Lider Pide.

The older the oven, the better the pide tastes

Bekiroğulları Pide was the second restaurant to open on the street. They have a total of three stores on this street. Many famous people such as Hülya Koçyiğit, Şevket Çoruh and Volkan Konak eat at this pideci, which is operated by five siblings. During our conversation, we learned another secret from pide-maker Şaban. “If you cut a hot pide with a knife, it will become doughy. Its grease will leak on to the plate and its taste will be lost. It is tastier if you eat it with your hands,” he says. Describing the difference between their pides, Sinan Çoşkun, one of the owners of the restaurant, says: “We have the oldest oven on this street. The older the oven, the better the pide will taste. Plus, we get our braised meat from Rize, the cheese and butter is from Vakfıbekir and ground meat and cubed meat from Afyon. We get all the ingredients from their original source.”

I send food to the prime minister’s house once or twice a month

Nur Yazıcı is another restaurant operator on this street. She used to have a restaurant located in the central part of Ümraniye, but she opened a place called “Nur Abla Karadeniz Sofrası” in Tepeüstü when it became popular for its Black Sea pidecis. She not only makes pides but all dishes the Black Sea is known for. The first thing that attracts one’s attention upon entering her restaurant is the packaged plates. “Hygiene is the most important thing for us. We wrap the plates as soon as they come out of the dishwasher. Soon we are going to start wrapping our glasses,” she said, and explained that Emine Erdoğan, the wife of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been ordering food for 20 to 30 people once or twice a week ever since she visited the restaurant because she really likes the food. Apparently Erdoğan has developed a taste for Yazıcı’s black sea dishes, most of her orders being for rice with anchovies.