Kaymakçı Pando: Istanbul Breakfast Institution

Truly good eateries are not mere food outlets: they grow beyond the products they sell and become institutions. Kaymakçı Pando at Beşiktaş market does serve delicious kaymak, or clotted cream. But you come here as much as for the legends and rituals still nurtured and observed at this family-run eatery that I suspect has only slightly changed since 1895 when it first opened its doors.

Even the recent uplift of Kaymakçı Pando did not alter its feel. Large shop window featuring a basket of village eggs, kaymak - in the little snow-white rolls stacked in a basin and already plated waiting to be drizzled with honey, - and two small stuffed buffalos hinting the origin of the anchor good. Kaymak is made by skimming buffalo milk that have been simmered for a couple of hours. This process results in a very rich thick cream served with honey and to be enjoyed with fresh white bread and black tea in the morning.

Kaymakçı Pando as the name suggests does just that - makes and serves one of the best kaymak you can find in Istanbul. Many buy to take home, some sit down right at one of the 4 tables inside or grab one outside on a good sunny day.

I prefer feasting inside. Always in the good company of dignified ascendents of Pando, the current owner of the place. On the wall are the portraits of his father and grandfather - Sestaki family from Turkish Bulgarians. It was the grandfather who learned the kaymak making as he worked for an affluent paşa, highly ranked military official in the Ottoman empire.

Even after the empire collapsed the paşa did not lose all its levers and the kaymak business of Sestaki flourished. As much as parting with the Ottoman legacy was the part of the political agenda in the early republic days inhabitants of the Dolmabahçe palace very much enjoyed the typical Ottoman morning treat of bal-kaymak (clotted cream with honey) and the supplier of the heavenly white richness was none other but the Sestaki family. Pando Amca remembers how as a little boy he saw Ataturk whose photo now too graces the walls of the shop so close that he ran away not believing his luck.

Now 87-old Pando does not run any more. At his shop he attends to his milk, kaymak and customers in a very unrushed fashion. He is the one who takes orders, makes your bill and charges you. But would you guess that it is his wife who runs the kitchen?

The ritual at Kaymakçı Pando stays the same: you start with ordering a portion of kaymak with honey and eat it dragging one piece of fresh white bread from the large basket after another and sipping the hot milk or black tea, as you may prefer. Meanwhile village eggs with orange yolks can be turned into an omelet or fried sunny side up in the amount of butter only a Turk can believe. And of course may order the standard plate of the Turkish breakfast delights with with cheese, olives, sliced cucumber and tomato.

But really you don’t come to Kaymakçı Pando for that plate. Honestly, you don’t come here for the kaymak either. However heavenly. You, a convinced big city dweller, come here to watch the food theater. And maybe get to play a small part. To feel real. As real as the old man with the shaking hands serving you snow-white kaymak and sunny orange yolks can be. As real as the old market far away from the fancy breakfast spots on the Bosphorus. As real as the local food institution even with its recent uplift.