Visit the lanes of Turkey from Mumbai's first Baklava confectionery

Sefa Sülüker says food is considered a "social technology" back home.

After his shift at Hurrem’s in Fort, Sefa Sülüker usually goes straight to the gym. As head chef of the new baklava store, his job involves making and quality-testing dozens of trays of the abundantly syrup-soaked treats. Since the store opened in December, he has put about 20 variants of the pastry on the menu, which further explains his post-work routine.

Sülüker, and the bread chef Mehmet Cam, hail from Turkey’s Gaziantep, which is among the eight global cities that Unesco lauds for “creative gastronomy”. Ahmed Farid, co-founder and promoter of Prime Foods and Confectionary, also flies in nuts, coffee and hand-painted boxes from the country so that Mumbai clients can “visit the lanes of Turkey from the comfort of their city”.

Havuc dilmi with vanilla ice-cream at Hurrem’s

The shop itself gets its name from a powerful woman of the Ottoman Empire, one of the wives of Sultan Suleiman I, who was responsible for taking the dessert from the royal court to the general public. Spurred by travels to the region, Farid now hopes to make baklava a household name in India. The Consul General of Turkey in Mumbai, he shares, has been holding some of his coffee meetings at the restaurant.

The interiors of the sweet shop

These are sweet without meats, it turns out. The establishment has elected to go “100 per cent vegetarian” and designed recipes without so much as an egg glaze. That task took eight months of testing to perfect. Even if the store aims to draw more people away from chocolate and towards these Mediterranean treats as a gifting option, it is the chocolate baklava fistikli that remains most sought-after.

“Clients in Mumbai can visit the lanes of Turkey from the comfort of their city”- Ahmed Farid, co-founder and promoter, Prime Foods

Farid suggests trying another popular menu item, the havuc dilmi. It is constructed with 80 handmade pastry sheets so thin “you can read the newspaper from through it”, and goes best with ice-cream or clotted cream. This one is for people with unconditional love for sugar. An iced tea spiked generously with the Turkish staple of pomegranate helps cut through the saccharine overload. As does the sharp green olive salad. Besides the main attraction, chewy Turkish delight, spiced and candied nuts, and stuffed Medjool dates are on offer too.

The chefs speak limited English so the Indian staff communicate with them using Google Translate. If this arrangement works smoothly, there is a Turkish concept that tells you why. Sülüker says food is considered a “social technology” back home. “It brings people together and keeps them happy.”