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Çakmak: Breakfast of Şampiyons

Çakmak, photo by Ansel Mullins [1]
When it comes to the first meal of the day in Beşiktaş, it’s hard to pass up the institution that Pando’s lovely old kaymak shop [2] has become. Yet as much as Pando is the neighborhood’s culinary standard-bearer, there is another side of breakfast in Beşiktaş that feels more contemporary, more real and – somehow – even more “Beşiktaş.” After being tipped off [3] long ago, we have finally come to appreciate the simple charms of Çakmak Kahvaltı Salonu and, by extension, more about this interesting neighborhood.

Beşiktaş is a large district in central Istanbul with an equally large and varied population, but at its commercial center, the çarşı (market), there is a coherent feeling of local identity. The neighborhood’s sometime champion soccer team is certainly a unifying force, as is the underdog political party (CHP) that remains popular, but the “Beşiktaş type” can’t be reduced to simple affiliations.

The rest of this new review can be found on CulinaryBackstreets.com, here [4].

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