Shop Like an Expert: Turkish Food at Istanbul Market
Tulip Cafe's co-founder Hatice Kucuker helps us navigate the aisles at Istanbul Market in Bethel Center Mall, plus local food news.
This is the fifth installment in our Shop Like an Expert series, where we aim to demystify Columbus’ international markets and give you more confidence to shop like a pro.
Shop Like an Expert: Turkish Food at Istanbul Market
By Bethia Woolf
Not all Middle Eastern markets are the same, says Hatice Kucuker, who grew up in Turkey and co-owns Tulip Cafe. Kucuker says she shops at Gourmet Fine Foods by Istanbul Market (5227 Bethel Center Mall) because it has the widest range of Turkish products in the city and because she enjoys the clean, well-organized store and fresh halal meat.
During a recent visit to the market on Bethel Road, Kucuker’s eyes repeatedly lit up as she spotted nostalgic treats from her childhood and ingredients that are now more readily available in Central Ohio. International markets are a great resource for those of us who enjoy cooking and exploring the world through food, but for immigrants these groceries can be a powerful connection to home and a way to retain culture and traditions.
Istanbul Market originally opened in 2005 in a smaller space next door to its current location, and in 2021 quadrupled its square footage and upgraded its decor. It’s now a modern, well-stocked store with a wide range of Middle Eastern products in addition to its core Turkish offering.
We started in the produce section, where Kucuker purchased eggplants to make karniyarik, a stuffed and baked eggplant with meat and tomato sauce. Istanbul Market stocks three sizes of eggplant, and Kucuker explains that she uses medium-sized eggplants for this dish and the larger one for stews and a fried version with yogurt.
The Dairy Case
One thing you will notice at Istanbul Market is the large dairy section with a wide variety of labneh, cheeses and kaymak. Turks eat more cheese and dairy products than you might expect.
Made from strained yogurt, labneh is a savory product that is thick, tangy and texturally somewhere between Greek yogurt and cream cheese. It’s a popular breakfast item in Turkey, where breakfast spreads often include bread, cheese, eggs, honey or jam, and olives.
Kaymak is a rich, creamy dairy product similar to clotted cream, made by slowly simmering milk and skimming the cream from the top. Kucuker notes that kaymak comes in different thicknesses, much the way we have different varieties of heavy cream. It is eaten at breakfast as well as with desserts. Kucuker likes to pair it with baklava when she wants to temper the sweetness.
Lor peyniri is Turkish cottage cheese, though it has a somewhat different texture than the American version, a little drier and more crumbly. It’s one of Kucuker’s favorites, eaten with bread and honey.
Kucuker tells me that while she uses feta in cooking, she doesn’t typically eat it on its own. She prefers beyaz peynir, meaning white cheese, which is a bit milder but still brined and salty.
Meat & Fish
Next to the dairy section is a selection of beef sausages and cured meats. Kucuker recommends basturma, a seasoned and air-cured beef that is often cooked with eggs for breakfast or used in other dishes. She also likes sujuk, a horseshoe-shaped dry, fermented sausage available in mild and spicy varieties that can be used in similar ways.
Istanbul Market has a butcher counter with halal meat. Fish imported from Turkey, including fresh sardines, is seasonally available and typically announced on the market’s social media.
In the same refrigerated section as the sausages, you’ll find ready-made burek dough (aka borek) in different shapes and thicknesses: thin for frying, thicker for baking. You can add your preferred fillings and make burek easily at home. Kucuker notes that the refrigerated dough is easier to handle than the frozen.
Pantry Staples
Turning from the refrigerated case, you are met with an array of jams and spreads, and—because it’s 2026—plenty of pistachio cream for all of your Dubai chocolate needs. The market carries bottled pistachio cream for lattes as well as tubs of thicker cream for desserts. Istanbul Market also sells a sugar-free hazelnut puree that Kucuker recommends. Her personal favorite is sour cherry preserves, which she eats with bread and uses to make thumbprint cookies. She also points out mulberry molasses, popular in Turkey as a mix-in with tahini and jokingly referred to as Turkish Nutella.
Istanbul Market has an impressive jarred olive selection. Kucuker points out her favorite black olives, mild and not too salty. When shopping for black olives, she avoids ones that are watery. For green olives, she prefers scored olives, where each one has been lightly cut with a knife. Her go-to brands are Kuru Sele for black olives and Sera for green.
One category I was unfamiliar with was whole dried vegetables. Traditionally, dried zucchini, eggplant and peppers were preserved in season to be used throughout the winter, when they were rehydrated to make stuffed peppers and eggplant. Although these vegetables are now available fresh year-round, Kucuker says people enjoy the nostalgic flavor of the dried versions. She personally loves the smell of dried eggplant. Dried okra is also available, but Kucuker prefers the canned version for her own cooking and opts for tiny baby okra, which are less slimy.
One staple of Turkish cooking is pepper paste, used in stews alongside tomato paste. Kucuker recommends the Öncü brand.
If you love pickles, you might want to try şalgam, a drink made from fermented purple carrots, bulgur and salt. It’s popular in Adana, in southern Turkey, where Kucuker’s husband is from. The drink is often paired with spicy Adana kebabs to aid digestion and rehydrate in the hot climate.
Kucuker points out baldo rice, a plump short-grain variety famous in Turkey that is apparently a hybrid of Arborio. She says it is tricky to cook and difficult to get the water ratio right for pilaf, so she typically opts for jasmine rice, which is more forgiving. Bulgur wheat, on the other hand, is used far more commonly in Turkish cooking than in the U.S. It comes in many grinds, with specific coarsenesses suited for soup, kibbeh, meatballs and pilaf. Kucuker recommends bulgur mixed with vermicelli as a pilaf side dish.
