In our beloved home base of Kurtuluş, the neighborhood’s rich patisserie culture is often associated with its Greek and Armenian communities. Some of these shops churn out the best profiterole in the city, while numerous others bake sakızlı Paskalya çöreği, a subtly-sweet bun laced with mastic gum and topped with thinly-sliced almonds consumed on Easter.
There are more of these excellent patisseries in Kurtuluş than we could count on both hands, but only one that features the traditional Sephardic specialty börekitas, a small, crescent-moon shaped empanada variation stuffed with either roasted eggplant or potato. At Kurtuluş Pastanesi, which is perched on the corner of a backstreet just a stone’s throw away from the main avenue, almost everything that comes out of the oven is kosher, save a few cakes made with gelatin or food coloring. The owners, brothers Veyis and Mustafa Bülbül, are Muslims from the snow-capped eastern province of Kars, but they have a long history in Jewish baking.
As a youngster, Mustafa apprenticed at Osman Pastanesi in central Şişli, which primarily served non-Muslim communities and has since closed. When he went off to do his mandatory military service, he was assigned to the bakery unit of the brigade. Upon return, Mustafa went back to work at the same patisserie, and his boss taught him the trade that he himself had learned from a Jewish baker back in the day. Mustafa now continues as the master of the oven at Kurtuluş Pastanesi while Veyis runs the catering end and the front of the house, maintaining the elaborately stocked and decorated shelves and counters.
“This is a very old patisserie. Mustafa bought it 20 years ago. Before that it was called Buket, and a few years later [the previous owners] passed away. Now, we are carrying on, and with my brother we are maintaining this culture,” Veyis explained, adding that they cater to gatherings after Jewish funerals and Shabbat breakfasts, as well as Christian baptisms and other events particular to the city’s non-Muslims.
“Generally, 70 percent of our customers are Jewish. We have been working with Jews for 35 years, and we have two kitchens, one of which is reserved for Jews. Since they don’t use the same ingredients as we do, whether it’s a fork, a knife, or an oven, everything is separated for them,” Veyis said. Most of these customers come from quarters such as Ortaköy, Bebek, Ulus, Etiler, Tarabya, Istinye, and Göktürk, some of which are quite far away from Kurtuluş. There are a few tables outdoors that are usually occupied when the weather is nice, and Veyis said that 90 percent of the customers who come to sit and have breakfast are locals.
We savor these börekitas and whatever else comes out of the oven at Kurtuluş Patisserie, which includes miniature rose-shaped spinach börek and hot dogs wrapped in puff pastry. The eggplant börekitas are particularly tasty as the roast vegetable imparts a smoky, almost meaty flavor. On a sublime spring Istanbul afternoon in the middle of Passover, Veyis points to two piles of börekitas specially prepared for the festival. These are made with matzah flour and without shortening, which he says is a painstaking process:
“These are not easy to fold. A single one takes two or three minutes to make, otherwise it won’t hold,” he said. Veyis pointed to the adjacent trays of sweets which we had never seen before, including hefty chunks of orange peel which are boiled and bathed in a thick syrup, noting that they all were also prepared for Passover. He treats us to one of these seasonally-appropriate börekitas filled with potato, which was delightfully crumbly and had a rich umami flavor, going down nicely with a glass of black tea.
Kurtuluş Pastanesi is small but bursting with cakes, candies, a row of Passover treats, and the main counter which is laden with other savory pastries including börek, poğaca, simit, and börekitas made with standard flour, which often sell out by midday. At the end of our conversation with Veyis, he gets a call from a woman in the upmarket seaside neighborhood of Bebek, a 20-minute drive from Kurtuluş in light traffic (so really, more like an hour). She placed a hefty order of the Passover börekitas, which Veyis jots down as he describes how to reach the patisserie. Once at the shop, customers can also choose from its vast array of items, which includes stacked rectangular pieces of pure housemade marzipan, another item not found in any sweet shop.
Until this year, Kurtuluş was one of the few neighborhoods in Istanbul where certain supermarkets would always have a large stock of matzah on display at Passover. This year, Istanbul Jews complained of not being able to find any, likely a sad consequence of the rampant inflation that has bumped food prices by as much as 150 percent in the past year, resulting in supermarkets declining to purchase the imported unleavened bread. Fortunately, the Bülbül brothers and Kurtuluş Pastanesi continue to provide an important service to the city’s dwindling Jewish community, winning over no shortage of other customers in the process.
While Kurtuluş Pastanesi is a one-of-a-kind patisserie, it bakes börekitas not just during Passover but throughout the year. But this small bakery functions perhaps more importantly as a neighborhood meeting place. People from around the block can often be found sipping tea and munching on whatever has come out fresh from the oven as they sit at the outdoor tables lingering in the shade on the sidewalk. Hidden in plain view, it took us years to discover this gem. Better late than never.
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