A guide to Turkish flatbreads
Pide and lahmacun both come up on our menu, and they get mixed up often enough that it is worth setting out plainly what each one actually is, so you know what you are ordering.
Pide
Pide is a thicker, boat-shaped oven-baked bread, split lengthways and topped generously before baking, similar in spirit to a Turkish take on a flatbread pizza but with its own texture and shape. Ours comes in several versions: kiymali pide (seasoned minced lamb), chicken pide (marinated chicken, vegetables and cheese), kusbasi pide (diced lamb with peppers and tomatoes), sucuklu pide (Turkish spicy sausage and melted cheese), and a vegetarian pide loaded with mixed vegetables, cheese and herbs. Each is baked to order, so the edges come out properly crisp while the topping stays soft.
Lahmacun
Lahmacun is a different thing entirely: a thin, crisp, almost cracker-like flatbread topped with seasoned minced meat, tomatoes, peppers and herbs, rolled out much thinner than pide and baked hot and fast. It is smaller, lighter, and usually eaten rolled up, sometimes with a squeeze of lemon and a few salad leaves tucked inside. We also do a vegetarian lahmacun salad wrap, built the same way but without the meat.
Because it is rolled so thin, lahmacun cooks in only a few minutes at a high oven temperature, which is part of why it turns up so often as a starter or a quick side rather than a main in its own right. The topping caramelises slightly at the edges where the dough is thinnest, which is where a lot of the flavour actually sits.
Which to choose
If you want something closer to a full meal on a bread base, go for a pide. If you want something lighter, quicker, and more snackable, lahmacun is the one, and it works well alongside a shared platter rather than as a meal on its own. Both are also the base for two of our wraps: the doner wrap and the lahmacun doner wrap, which pairs doner meat with a piece of lahmacun instead of a plain flatbread.
Ordering for a group
If you are undecided, a couple of lahmacun to start while everyone settles at the table, followed by a pide each or shared between two, covers most tastes without over-ordering. The vegetarian pide and the lahmacun salad wrap mean there is a proper option on the table even if not everyone in your group eats meat.
Everything is baked fresh to order, whether you eat in or order ahead for collection at 117 Wood Street.