Ah, so it must have been you, 'Somerset Simon', the couple that was sitting on the corner table this evening
Hello! Yes we were also waiting for that place to open. It is part of the HUNER Pide & Fırın (Boulangerie or Bread Bakery) locally owned mini-chain. They have one in Taşyaka quarter (diagonally across from one of the Sultan Pastry Shop branches there). They just opened recently one in Tuzla quarter, also with brickstone oven as the one in Tasyaka, and now this is the latest one. Though this one has no actual brickstone oven on premises. They are bringing everything fresh over from the other one/s. Nevertheless, Calis needed a bakery like that where you can just lounge and relax in a spacey (is this a word?) environment. The owner actually told us that he wants people to come and stay a while -not just eat and run.
I just created their location on
FourSquare while I was there sipping tea and eating an apple filled cookie. uploaded some photos as well.. so go on people, give it a try and check in with 4Square app on your smart phone and tell others how your experience with the place was.
The owner is a relative of the owner of the other Huner (3) chain bakeries. So he gets to use the name and gets the bakery products directly from him, as well as the breads. We are particularly fond of the Ottoman Bread, now they renamed it to
Huner Bread -it is round and multi grained and multi textured. Though it comes later than the rest of the breads as it needs to cook longer and in lower temperatures then the rest of the more common breads, around 11am, sometimes 2pm if it is a busy bake day they tell us. We've tried all their other whole grained breads, they are not bad at all as well, though the 'Ottoman' is a winner. Their dark, round 'Köy Ekmeği' is great to by the way.
anyway, sorry for my babbling. I love it when I see local entrepreneurship and want everyone to support such brave attempts. The owner is from Kayaköy. He runs (or ran?) the KayaPark restaurant there and now he feels out of his element down here, but his wife likes it down here so he is giving it a go -let's not disappoint him -as long as he does his best to serve our needs properly. He is eager, energetic and ready to make adjustments to make everyone feel welcome. Case in point, when we made a comment that the lights were too bright inside, he immediately said it can be taken care of and cut the lights down to half
. He admits the fireplace could have been built in the center of the great room, so more people could enjoy it, and says if the business picks in the summer he might do that for next winter. It is the second day he opened his doors and they switched the layout of the couches and tables once already... cute.
