Editor’s note: We regret to report that Şimşek Pide Salonu has closed.
Turkey’s take on the pizza comes in two distinct varieties. There’s the Arabesque lahmacun, a round, ultra thin-crusted snack topped with a shmear of finely ground meat and seasoning. Then there’s pide, a more substantial canoe-shaped creation that’s a specialty of Turkey’s Black Sea region.
In Istanbul, pide joints are almost as common as blaring car horns, but Şimşek Pide Salonu has won our loyalty for its consistently outstanding made-to-order pide and convenient location. Passing the time at one of Şimşek’s outdoor tables on this quiet, sunny side street just off of Taksim Square is a pleasure in itself. Add a few pide and you’ve got a party.
To simplify the ordering process, Şimşek’s menu features a pide pictograph. As pictured, the item in question comes in three general forms: round like a pizza, the more traditional oblong, open-faced pide, and the calzone-like kapalı pide. The main components remain the same, regardless of the shape: dough plus toppings, assembled and then fired in a pizza oven.
At Şimşek we prefer the open-faced pide with a few toppings. The usta, or master, rolls the dough out long and thin and pinches up a ridge along the edges, forming the crust, which will bubble up and crackle around a chewier center, much like a good Italian pizza pie. Then comes a generous helping of blond-colored Black Sea kaşar cheese, a rich but mild cow’s cheese that hints at mozzarella. Depending on your preferences, the usta adds tomatoes, peppers, pastırma (slices of cured beef) or ground beef. If you so desire, he’ll even crack an egg over your pide before sliding it into the oven on a long wooden paddle.
A few minutes later the pide emerges with a nicely browned crust and soft, moist center. The final touch is a thorough glazing with melted butter. The Black Sea region is known for its top-tier dairy products, and the food from there certainly tries to prove that point. However, we suggest a pat of butter, rather than a dousing. Just tell the chef, “az tereyağı.” That said, we would agree with the usta at the oven, who explains, “It’s just not pide without butter.”
May 18, 2015 Kenan Usta Ocakbaşı
If Istanbul had a city museum, in the 20th-century exhibition we’d expect to walk into a […] Posted in Istanbul
April 13, 2019 Building Blocks
Feta must be one of the world’s oldest cheeses, it’s certainly one of the most famous, […] Posted in Athens
June 2, 2023 Ghebi: Subterranean Comfort
Few locals, let alone tourists have reached the isolated mountain village of Ghebi in […] Posted in Tbilisi
Published on October 12, 2012
Related stories
May 18, 2015
IstanbulIf Istanbul had a city museum, in the 20th-century exhibition we’d expect to walk into a life-sized recreation of Kenan Usta Ocakbaşı, a seminal grill joint in the Beyoğlu district. As visitors descended a few steps into the exhibition, sensors would trigger the harsh light of fluorescent bulbs overhead, illuminating a room covered in photographs…
Sample Greece's best feta with us our Downtown Athens walk!
April 13, 2019
AthensFeta must be one of the world’s oldest cheeses, it’s certainly one of the most famous, and it’s practically never missing from a Greek table, no matter the time of day. A person might grab a chunk of this chalk-white substance for breakfast, crunch through layers of feta-stuffed phyllo for elevenses, put a slab of…
June 2, 2023
Tbilisi | By Pearly Jacob
TbilisiFew locals, let alone tourists have reached the isolated mountain village of Ghebi in Georgia’s northern borderlands of Racha. However, many have passed through the doors of its namesake basement restaurant in the bustling left bank district of Marjanishvili in downtown Tbilisi. For more than a decade, the eatery has been steadily serving up comfort…
