Communal knead: A Turkish baker in Kamakura draws queues

Japan Times

26-07-2025

In the sleepy neighborhood of Omachi in southeast Kamakura, a small, unmarked building that sits a fork in the road has drawn a queue of 15 people, hinting at its new tenant. What was once a corner koban police box is now Pide, a tiny Turkish-Nordic bakery.
Run by baker Burcu Alkurt, 34, and her husband and business partner, Aziz Firat, 36, Pide specializes in sourdough, which comes in shokupan (milk bread loaf) and the round pain de campagne (French country bread) shapes. Their surfaces are flaky and crispy, and their crumb is soft and airy with no trace of briny bite.
The shop is named after the Turkish flatbread that Alkurt's father used to bring home when she was growing up in The Hague.
'My dad was a baker,' she says. 'The name has an emotional connection for me.'
However, Alkurt was unsure if she was good enough to bake professionally. Her Turkish upbringing also meant that baking was still seen as a male profession. Ironically, as a child, she had a distaste for Trabzon Vakfıkebir, a traditional Turkish sourdough from the Black Sea region.
In 2022, following a life-changing trip to Thailand where the idea of opening a Turkish food business took shape after seeing the country's entrepreneurial spirit firsthand, she left her job as a visual merchandiser to intern at Oslo's renowned bakery, Ille Brod, for two months. As she explored the mellower flavors of Nordic sourdough and noticed how women took the lead as bakers and business owners, something stirred in her.
Later that year, she relocated to Kamakura with Firat, who found a product design job in Tokyo. Alkurt connected with fellow Ille Brod alumnus Tsukasa Miyawaki on the day his fabled Tokyo sourdough bakery Vaner served its last loaves. While her dreams of further study under Miyawaki's tutelage were dashed, she did receive, as a parting gift, some of his sourdough starter. This encouraged her to create her own starter.
Pide has been attracting customers from near and far since it opened in January this year. |
ALEX MICHAEL DWYER
A string of serendipitous encounters with friendly neighbors — the jam maker who asked her to bring her bread to outdoor markets in the nearby towns of Zushi and Fujisawa, the contractor who eventually helped reshape what had become a storage building into her current space at Pide — dared her to dream of setting up a bakery of her own.
After less than two years of living in Japan, she soft-opened Pide in January 2025. The locals began queuing up to try her lahmacun, a Turkish pizza, before even she and Firat arrived for work.
'That's when I realized, 'Wait, this is not normal,'' Firat says. 'It became something that we didn't imagine.'
The harsh realities of running their own business soon set in, though. They've sometimes felt overwhelmed by the daily operations and logistics — the demand for her baked goods has outpaced supply — not to mention linguistic and cultural hurdles.
Sourcing the right ingredients was also a particular challenge. She initially had a hard time finding the high-protein flour that was best suited for sourdough. After experimenting with 30 flours from all over Japan, she settled on a blend of six different flours for her recipe, including bread flour, whole wheat and rye from Hokkaido. 'You can make (the sourdough) acidic, sweet or mild; it's up to you,' she says, adding that sourdough is still quite a novelty for Japanese people.
Apart from sourdough, Alkurt also makes kardemummabullar and kanelbullar, Scandinavian-inspired buns that have a perfect pillowy texture: Twisted, knotted and just a touch sweet, they come in two flavors — cardamom or cinnamon — and are addictive for all ages.
Then there's simit — sometimes known as the Turkish bagel — topped with honey and mascarpone. It vies for your attention with breads like springy rosemary focaccia (a favorite of elderly regulars), Danish rugbro rye and pastries like lemon poppyseed cake.
Burcu Alkurt (right) and her husband, Aziz Firat, bring an approachable, relaxed vibe to the bakery. |
ALEX MICHAEL DWYER
In line with the relaxed spirit of Kamakura, Alkurt and Firat are more than happy to answer any questions customers have about sourdough. In a way, it's also their open invitation to get to know fellow bread lovers from near and far.
Their approachability has drawn the attention of an aspiring female baker from Nagoya. The newly married woman was weighing whether she should take a working holiday in Copenhagen to study bread. Alkurt invited her to Kamakura where they had a chance to bake together and chat about opening a bakery in Japan.
'When I talked to her, I really saw how afraid people are to start their own thing,' Alkurt recalls. 'I showed her that you can do your own stuff. You don't need to work 10 years at a bakery (to open your own).'
4-1-1 Omachi, Kamakura 248-0007; instagram.com/pide.kamakura ; open on weekends only, from 12 p.m. until sold out