Where to find the best Turkish delight in Istanbul

“A true lokum needs to pass two tests,” says Leyla Celalyan. The heir to Hacı Bekir, Türkiye’s oldest Turkish delight brand, holds a cube of the powdered sugar-coated sweet between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s all about texture,” she explains, pressing down on the sweet, scrutinising it at eye level. “When you squeeze it, it needs to bounce back.” Leyla releases the lokum — better known throughout the world as ‘Turkish delight’ — and it slowly reforms. She presses it again, harder this time, but after each attack, the little butter-yellow cube springs back unscathed.

We’re in the confectioner’s original shop in central Istanbul’s historic Sirkeci neighbourhood. Outside, tourists are heading for Hagia Sophia and the museum-piece railway station, once the terminus of the Orient Express; trams clang through the streets and shopkeepers return from Friday prayers. Inside the shop, there’s a cheerful calm. 

“The second test,” Leyla continues, “is that it shouldn’t stick to your teeth.” She bites cleanly through the middle and shows me the intact structure. This, she says, is what separates good lokum from bad.

The story of Hacı Bekir is the history of Turkish delight itself. The shop was founded in 1777 by Bekir Efendi, who came to Istanbul from Kastamonu in Türkiye’s Western Black Sea region and soon became renowned across the Ottoman capital for his confectionery. While jelly-like sweets had existed in various forms before, Hacı popularised the starch-based version we know today.

His innovation transformed the eating experience. Honey and molasses had previously added texture, but starch (cornstarch, wheat starch or flour) created the delicate chew now associated with lokum and allowed flavours of fruit, nuts and spices to come through more clearly. The sweet became so popular that Bekir was appointed chief confectioner to Sultan Mahmud II’s palace.

From there, lokum travelled westwards with merchants and travellers. It was dubbed Turkish delight when it arrived in the UK and entered popular culture. It appeared as the ultimate exotic temptation in CS Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, indicating the esteem the sweet once held in Western imagination.

“In Europe, people think lokum means rose flavour,” says Leyla. “But in Türkiye, pistachio is the undisputed bestseller.” I’m offered some and it is indeed excellent: nutty, chewy and not too sweet, the double-roasted pistachio balancing out the sugar. I eye other kinds of lokum being packed by a salesman for an elderly couple. Leyla catches my glance and brings over a small plate for us to try. 

“This one is kaymaklı. It’s seasonal,” she says, explaining that the cream-filled sweet is a treat during the colder months, when local milk is richer and traditionally would have been easier to store. This lokum has no added flavouring but is rolled, roulade-like, and filled with clotted cream. I take a bite. The kaymak (cream) cuts through the sweetness and adds a fresh buttery burst to each chew. I see the venerable old clerk cheekily slipping one out of the display box and into his mouth. He has the same ecstatic reaction as me. 

Growing up in Istanbul, I was hypnotised by the shop’s displays: bright red and warm yellow lokum stacked on silver trays; akide (hard candies streaked with colour) filling jars like edible jewels. But for many my age, lokum belongs mostly to Eid visits with grandparents, or alongside Turkish coffee. Still, Istanbul’s food scene is starting to reclaim it in different ways.

A new chew

From Sirkeci, I head to Bomonti. Once a district of factories and warehouses, it’s now one of Istanbul’s fastest-changing central neighbourhoods, with residential towers rising between old apartment blocks. It’s here, where old Istanbul and its gentrified future meet, that Selim Cenkel opened Marsel Delights.

“I wanted to make lokum cool again,” says Selim. With neat salt-and-pepper curls and round glasses, he looks more like a hipster wine bar host than a confectionery brand owner. “When I was growing up on Büyükada [in Istanbul’s Princes’ Islands], lokum was a treat. But in time, it lost its appeal.” 

Named after Cenkel’s grandfather, Marsel Delights feels worlds away from the nostalgic atmosphere of Hacı Bekir. There’s exposed pipework, souvenir merchandise hanging near the entrance and a burgundy marble counter backed by an open production space like that of a modern chocolate atelier.

There, freshly set slabs of lokum rest in wooden trays for several days before being cut into cubes and tossed in flavoured powders rather than the classic powdered sugar. Then, they must rest again. The waiting, Selim explains, matters as much as the ingredients. “There are strict standards for lokum, so producers can’t use easy setting agents like gelatine,” he says. “If it sets well, it’s 100% authentic. If it doesn’t, it goes in the bin. There’s no 99% lokum.” I taste a piece of the just-made sweet; it’s overly soft, closer to jelly, while the rested pieces have a bouncy chew.

Marsel’s modern approach goes beyond the look; eating lokum is central to the experience. Back in the cafe, I’m given a flight of the sweets along with a flavour chart, tasting notes and a cup of thick, black Turkish coffee. On a small silver tray lined with paper resembling traditional Turkish lacework, six cubes sit side by side in jewel-like colours: pomegranate, raspberry and sumac; rose and blackberry; mastic and mulberry; pistachio; hazelnut and caramel; and chocolate-covered hazelnut. 

Selim brings another tray with a single pale green cube on it. “Wasabi,” he says. “One of our crazier ones.” This limited-edition flavour, I’ll admit, isn’t my favourite, but the sharp sourness is certainly refreshing. Marsel’s combinations, along with its packaging, are fun, unusual and colourful. “People think innovation means abandoning tradition,” Selim says. “But sometimes, it’s just finding a new way to connect it to younger generations.”

Liquid nostalgia

Later, as the sun drops behind Istanbul’s European shore, I take the ferry from Karaköy to Kadıköy. From Kadıköy pier, I walk into Moda, where cafes gradually give way to tattoo parlours, beer gardens and cocktail bars. My destination, Lelabbo Cocktail Bar, sits inside a narrow, mezzanine-lined space. Signs reading ‘MILD POISONS’ and ‘STRONG POISONS’ hang on the wall beside shelves lined with bottles of house-made infusions.

Owner Emrah Kunt, a former engineer turned mixology expert, makes me a drink inspired by zereş lokum, a pistachio-embedded Turkish delight coated in dried, sour barberries. Served in a coupe glass, the cocktail looks like an Espresso Martini: a Guinness-like white foam sits on top of dark liquid, intersected by an off-centre streak of red dust. The first sip is all pillowy foam, yielding quickly to the drink beneath. The cocktail doesn’t quite taste like lokum, yet somehow evokes it completely. It has deep notes of roast pistachio and vanilla, warm spices from the rum base, and keeps the sweet and sour in perfect balance. 

“Turkish delight isn’t a sweet I eat very often,” says Emrah, “It’s more something I buy as a gift for foreign friends. But as a mixologist, it’s a great reference for time-tested flavour combinations.” What Hacı Bekir had perfected and preserved, and Marsel is adapting to modern tastes, Lelabbo has deconstructed into liquid memory.

Walking back to the pier, I pass a branch of Hacı Bekir. A child standing outside the display window tugs at his mother’s sleeve, transfixed by the jewel-bright cubes. Somewhere between palace confectioners, modern ateliers and cocktail bars, lokum continues to entice new generations.