What Is
Develi Tahinlisi?

Develi tahinlisi is a traditional sweet from Develi: tahini and sugar rolled in layers of thin dough and baked in a stone oven.

Is it a dessert or a pide?

Both. The dough is pide dough and it is baked like a pide, but the filling is tahini and sugar, and it eats sweet. It is usually ordered after a meal or alongside a glass of tea rather than as a main course.

What the oven does to the tahini

The character of this pide comes from the tahini caramelising in the oven's heat. Combined with sugar it turns deep gold, gives off a distinct aroma, and forms a thin crust across the top, while the layers underneath stay soft. Having crisp and soft in the same slice is what this sweet is known for.

Tahini pastries are common across Anatolia, but two things set tahinli pide apart: how thin the dough is, and the faint smokiness the wood fire leaves behind.

How it is served

Tahinli pide is sliced and served hot. As it cools the tahini sets and the texture suffers, which is why it is baked to order. Plain Turkish tea goes well with it and cuts through the richness.

Tahinli, cevizli, kaymakli: three sweet pides

Sweet pide is not a single thing in Develi cooking. Three different flavours come out of the same thin dough, and all three bake in the same stone oven:

Kaymakli tahinli

The same tahini pide, served with kaymak, Turkish clotted cream. Hot tahini against cold cream changes the dish noticeably — the cream softens the richness of the tahini. For anyone trying tahini pide for the first time, this is the version we suggest.

What to drink with it

Plain Turkish tea goes with tahini pide. What cuts the richness of the sweet is the bitterness of the tea; sugared tea upsets that balance. Turkish coffee works too, but tea is the local pairing.

If you want something savoury first, the usual order is to begin with Develi civiklisi — both come out of the same oven, one after the other.

Why is it so hard to find in Istanbul?

Tahini pide requires the dough to be rolled paper-thin and the tahini spread layer by layer; it takes skill and it takes time. In a kitchen where demand is irregular, keeping that recipe alive is difficult, so most pide houses never put it on the menu at all.

In Develi it is an everyday sweet. We brought the recipe from there, so we bake it every day — to order, in the stone oven.

Where to eat Develi tahinlisi in Istanbul

Tahinli pide is even harder to find than civiklisi — almost nowhere in Istanbul makes it regularly. Develi Seyrani Pide bakes it fresh in the stone oven every day in Fatih Kadirga, an 8 to 10 minute walk from Sultanahmet.