The fourth time was the charm when we finally were able to take a seat at Salepepe, a five-stool pizza bar in the exceedingly hip neighborhood of Yeldeğirmeni, located in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district on the Anatolian side of the city. When we first went, the restaurant was closed due to selling out early, while the next attempts involved lines out the door, and those in line had dibs on the last pies of the day.
But we weren’t about to give up after hearing lots of hype about the first and only Tokyo-style Neapolitan pizza joint in Istanbul, which was opened at the beginning of 2023 by 34-year-old Altuğ Şencan, a photographer by trade who long wanted to open his own restaurant.
“Since I haven’t enjoyed most of the pizza I’ve had in Istanbul, I decided to make it myself,” Şencan said with a laugh.
“At the beginning I wanted to make Neapolitan pizza, but places claiming to offer it started opening up everywhere, and most of them are not making Neapolitan pizza,” he added. During his research, which involved 3-4 years of experimenting with dough at home, Şencan eventually stumbled across the Tokyo style, which wears its Neapolitan influences on its sleeve but has distinct differences in terms of ingredients, preparation and cooking.
He acknowledges that he has still not perfected the craft in terms of how to roll the dough, and still regularly watches videos of Tokyo pizza masters in order to improve his game. Şencan was and is not messing around. Before opening Salepepe, he had never worked in a professional kitchen and his experience was confined to online research and home experimentation, but this was no obstacle for him.
There are two small Roccboxx ovens side by side at Salepepe, each just big enough to cook one pie at a time. As per the Tokyo-style technique, Şencan tosses some salt on the oven floor before sliding the pies in. They are baked at high heat for precisely one minute, and Şencan deftly uses the peel to make small rotations to ensure an even cook. On our first trip we naturally opted for the margherita, made with grana padana parmesan and fior di latte mozzarella. In true Neapolitan fashion, the pie is delightfully floppy and impossible to eat without making a mess, but we were struck by the quality of the cheese and how the dough is perfectly chewy with just the right amount of char. The crust helps absorb the fallen cheese and tomato sauce off the plate. We finish it in one setting without getting too stuffed.
Afterward, it’s time for a stroll around Yeldeğirmeni, where this writer lived between 2012-2014. At that time, there was little hip about the neighborhood. It was inhabited mostly by conservative Anatolian migrants, with a rising influx of students taking advantage of the cheap rent. All of a sudden, right before we moved to our current base of Kurtuluş, the area exploded, with numerous art galleries and cafes opening on its bustling main avenue.
That process has continued full speed ahead over the years and has spread to the backstreets. We were taken aback to see our former humble stomping ground packed with cool young people and sharply-designed shops, as we still remember a much plainer, down to earth – and, frankly, appealing – quarter. Nevertheless, it makes sense that a spot like Salepepe would pop up in Yeldeğirmeni, and there are many diners coming from elsewhere to get their hands on a slice.
On our second visit, we selected the “Butcher Pepe,” which is the same as the margherita but with the addition of generously-sliced chunks of artisanal sucuk (spicy Turkish garlic sausage). This time, we only had room for half the pie, and took the rest home. Hours later and cold, the cheese had congealed magnificently and the dough remained pleasantly chewy. The sucuk was brilliantly salty and flavorful. Pizza is never thrown away; it is enjoyed regardless of the temperature.
If it takes a whole family to make a great pizza, Salepepe is a shining example. While Şencan gets his cheese from the Istanbul outpost of high-end Italian marketplace Eataly, the jams used in his sweet pizza come from fruits in his garden and are prepared by his mother. His father obtains his olive oil from the Aegean province of Muğla. Meats are purchased from a local butcher, while the tomato sauce comes from the nearby province of Bursa. In the kitchen, he works side by side with his partner, Kübra.
“I try to make [my pizzas] with the highest quality ingredients I can find in Istanbul, because the biggest mistake that I’ve found with the pizza I’ve eaten here is that they continually use bad products. It doesn’t work that way. We’ll either use good ingredients or we won’t do it at all,” Şencan said, emphasizing that there is a daily limit to how much dough he prepares, which is why they tend to sell out early. He says that it is somewhat stressful when there is a rush, but that is tempered by the fact that it takes only one minute to cook one of his pies.
“The reactions I’m getting are much better than I expected. Some people have told me it’s the best pizza they’ve ever eaten. I still think it needs to be better,” Şencan says, ever the perfectionist.
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