Gaziantep
— the city where the pistachios go before the baklava.
Not only on a wall.
“A city in southeast Anatolia where the pistachios are weighed before dawn and the baklava is cut at noon. Coppersmiths still work the bazaar lanes below the citadel. The Zeugma mosaics, pulled from a riverbed before the dam came up, sit a few minutes from the kitchens that earned the city its UNESCO listing for food. People speak of the pistachio shops here by name, the way other cities speak of restaurants.
Gaziantep, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Gaziantep sits in southeast Anatolia, about 185 kilometres east of Adana and 100 kilometres north of Aleppo, on a plateau roughly 850 metres above sea level. The metropolitan area holds about 2.1 million people, making it Turkey's sixth-largest city. The old town gathers around the basalt-walled Gaziantep Castle, built on a mound first fortified in the Hittite period and rebuilt by the Romans, Byzantines, and Seljuks. UNESCO named the city a Creative City of Gastronomy in 2015, recognising a kitchen tradition built on Antep pistachios, local lamb, and red pepper.
The citadel rises on a tell at the centre of the old city, its walls rebuilt in basalt under Justinian in the sixth century and again under the Seljuks. The February 2023 earthquakes that struck the region damaged sections of the bastion, and restoration is ongoing. Below the castle, the covered bazaars (the Zincirli Bedesten and the copper bazaar) still hold workshops where craftsmen hammer trays and cezve over small forges. The Zeugma Mosaic Museum, opened in 2011, houses Roman floor mosaics rescued from villages flooded by the Birecik Dam reservoir.
The city's food reputation rests on three pillars: Antep pistachios grown in the surrounding villages, the long-rise baklava made with them, and the slow-cooked lamb dishes of the old kitchens. Imam Çağdaş has been cutting baklava since 1887. Güllüoğlu and Koçak are the other names spoken first. Beyond sweets, the local kitchen runs to beyran soup eaten before dawn, katmer folded around clotted cream and pistachio for breakfast, and yuvarlama at festival meals. The covered spice and pistachio bazaars open most mornings before the heat arrives.