Begin at Taskin Bakery, which supplies bread both to local restaurants and many of New York’s Middle Eastern markets. Turkish cuisine has a bread culture just as rich as the French, and Taskin’s wide selection does it proud. On the shelves you’ll find flaky croissant-like pastries, syrupy phyllo sweets, briny olive breads, and best of all, simit, crackly-chewy doughnut-shaped breads blitzed with sesame seeds. Fresh from the oven, Taskin’s simit are just as good as what you’ll find in Istanbul, where they’re relished for breakfast much like bagels are in New York. Taskin also has a flattop devoted to gozleme, a tissue-thin flatbread stuffed with fillings like cheese, greens, or meat, then folded over on itself to form a neat, floppy pocket. Go for one filled with spinach and cheese and you’ll be rewarded with greaseless, feather-light bread, barely wilted fresh greens, and lightly salty cheese. You’ll wonder why it’s not on every New York street corner.
