Turkish bakery near me
Turkish bakeries and patisseries near you: fresh simit and bread in the morning, börek by the slice, baklava by weight, and the pide and lahmacun ovens that turn a bakery into a lunch counter.
Find them near you
Search by postcode or use your location to find results near you.
What a Turkish bakery sells
A fırın is a bread bakery: simit, loaves, pide bread, lavash, and usually börek in trays, with lahmacun and pide from the oven at lunch. A pastane is a patisserie: baklava, kadayıf, sütlaç and other milk puddings, cakes, and Turkish delight, sold by weight. Many shops in the UK are both. The best time to visit is the morning, when the simit and börek are minutes old and the baklava was made that day.
How to judge one
Simit should crackle when broken. Börek should be layered and not leave oil on the paper. Baklava should be light for its size, bright green with real pistachio, and it should not sit in a pool of syrup. Ask what was made today; a good bakery is proud to say. The hygiene rating on our listing applies to the premises; a 5 is the norm.
What to buy
For breakfast: simit, a slice of cheese börek, and beyaz peynir from the fridge. For lunch: two lahmacun or a pide from the oven. For the table: a mixed box of baklava by weight, with pistachio rather than walnut. For the freezer: hand-made mantı and yufka sheets, which most Turkish bakeries stock. Turkish tea and coffee are usually sold alongside.
Where they cluster
Turkish bakeries follow the community: Green Lanes, Edmonton and Enfield in London have dozens within a few miles, and Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds have growing numbers. Our list matches businesses whose name signals a bakery, patisserie, simit or börek.
Where to find them
UK councils with the most matches in our directory.
Related dishes
- 01Simit
Simit is a ring of bread dipped in grape molasses and coated in sesame seeds, baked until crisp outside and chewy inside. It is the street bread of Istanbul, sold from carts and eaten with cheese and tea, and it is thinner, crisper and less doughy than a bagel, which it is often compared to. In the UK, Turkish bakeries bake it fresh every morning and it appears on every breakfast spread.
- 02Borek
Börek is layered filo pastry filled with cheese, spinach, minced meat or potato, baked or fried, and eaten hot at breakfast, as a snack or as a meze. It comes in dozens of shapes: rolled cigars, coiled spirals, flat trays cut into squares, and the pleated water börek that is boiled before baking. In the UK it is sold by the slice from Turkish bakeries and as sigara böreği, the fried cigars, on almost every restaurant menu.
- 03Baklava
Baklava is layered filo pastry filled with ground pistachio or walnut, baked until crisp and soaked in a light syrup. Turkish baklava is drier and more layered than the Greek and Levantine versions, with syrup rather than honey and pistachios from Gaziantep as the benchmark. In the UK it is sold by the piece or by weight from Turkish bakeries and patisseries, and the difference between a good box and a bad one is mostly butter and freshness.
- 04Kunefe
Künefe is a dessert of shredded pastry layered with unsalted cheese, baked in a shallow tray until crisp, soaked in syrup and served hot with pistachio and often a spoon of kaymak. It comes from Hatay in southern Turkey, and it must be eaten straight from the oven while the cheese still pulls in strings. In the UK it has become the signature dessert of Turkish restaurants and dedicated künefe shops have opened in London and Manchester.