Toronto’s contingent of Turkish dining options just got a little bit broader, and brighter, with the opening of Lokum Eats, at 409 College Street (near Bathurst).
Chef and owner Tuba Tunc’s culinary career began auspiciously in 2014, when she scored a first prize in the Minor’s Soup of the World Competition, for her Turkish Yogurt Soup. She took the win as a sign that she needed to pursue her dreams as a chef. After graduating from George Brown’s Chef School, in early 2020, she launched Lokum Eats as a catering and take-out business specializing in traditional Turkish dishes with modern twists.
Lokum is best known as the sweet and chewy sugar and starch confection, infused with rose water or lemon and dusted with sugar, whose 18th-century Turkish origins have earned it the English appellation Turkish delight. But Tunc points out that, in Turkey, “lokum” is also used as a greeting to guests, a way of extending hospitality. This is why she chose it as a name for her company, and since the end of April, her new restaurant.
The association with delights is equally apt; Lokum Eats’ flavours are complex and the visuals vibrant. The dinner menu includes appetizers and shareable mezes including muhamarra, a rich paste of roasted peppers, tomatoes, garlic, walnuts and herbs, and mucver, crisp zucchini fritters served with haydari (pressed garlic yogurt and dill dip).
Mains embrace beloved classics such as flaky borek pies, made with yufka pastry and stuffed with a variety of fillings (spinach and feta, deep-fried eggplant and beef) and manti (handmade Turkish dumplings, also generously stuffed with beef and spiced green lentils). More rarefied are the chicken thighs marinated in grape molasses, orange juice and spicy pepper paste, served with bulgar pilaf, and the hunkar begendi (aka Sultan’s Delight), featuring a roasted eggplant bathed in bechamel sauce and fresh kashar cheese, crowned with tender, tomato-braised beef.
Sweets include vanilla-flavoured labne cheesecake cups, topped with plum compote and cookie crumbles, and revani, a lemon-infused semolina cake dolloped with cream and seasonal fruit. Either -- or both -- pair nicely with Turkish coffee.
Lokum Eats is open for dine-in and takeout Tuesday to Saturday from 4 pm to 9:30 pm.
