Forty or more layers of hand-rolled dough, clarified butter and crushed green Antep pistachio, baked and syruped so the top shatters and the base stays crisp rather than wet.
Where to eat it: 5 restaurants across 1 city.
Baklava in Gaziantep is a protected product: the European Commission registered Antep baklavası with a protected geographical indication, and the city counts roughly 180 workshops making it. The commercial line starts in 1871, when Mehmet and Güllü Çelebi came home from a journey that took them through Damascus and opened a small baklava shop on Uzun Çarşı with their son Mahmut. Kuru baklava, a drier version engineered to survive travel, is how the city's pastry later reached Istanbul and then everywhere else. The signature variants split from there: şöbiyet with clotted cream folded in, dolama rolled tight, midye shaped like a mussel, bülbül yuvası coiled into a nest.
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Common allergens: Gluten, Nuts, Dairy
Tip from the editors. Cold syrup on hot pastry is the whole trick. Reverse it and the layers go soft instead of staying crisp.
Koçak Baklava is the baklava counter most of Gaziantep names first, a bright Şehitkamil salon selling şöbiyet, dolama and midye by the kilo.
Worth the queueÖzel şöbiyet
TipBuy by weight and eat it the same day. Antep baklava is built for hours, not for keeping.
İmam Çağdaş rolls its own baklava beside the kebab grill on Uzun Çarşı, and the havuç dilimi wedge is the one Gaziantep queues at the counter for it.
Worth the queueHavuç dilimi
TipThe takeaway counter is separate from the restaurant. Use the street door if you only want a box.
Baklavacı Zeki İnal is a family baklava workshop on Atatürk Bulvarı in Gaziantep that makes şöbiyet by hand and sells out most days by noon.
Worth the queueKaymaklı şöbiyet
TipClosed at weekends and often sold out by midday. Go on a weekday morning or do not bother.
Çelebioğulları Baklava keeps its Gazi Muhtar Paşa salon open to midnight, so a late Gaziantep baklava run does not depend on the bazaar counters.
TryBaklava and şöbiyet
TipThe salon has proper seating. Order a mixed plate with tea rather than a box to go.
Tarihi Elmacıpazarı Güllüoğlu bakes baklava and börek at the edge of the apple market, and it carries the oldest baklava name in all of Gaziantep.
Worth the queueFıstıklı baklava
TipAsk for the börek in the morning. It comes out of the oven early and sells before lunch.
More cities are in research. Want antep fıstıklı baklava covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.
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