Hafiz Mustafa

The best baklava place in Taksim square. They have really good variety and all of them taste good.

Baklava here is like no other. Could it be because we’re tourist… perhaps! But the place is always crowded and that’s always a good sign. Today I’m eating Sari Burma. Perfect! My husband tried the caramel cheesecake. Surprisingly enough it wasn’t bad. I will stick to traditional desserts after all we in Turkey.
Why a 4 star? Well because their service is below average. They stand around starring at you. A little too awkward.

Best baklava I have ever had! Very cool and classy ambiance. If you are looking for a nice café with a Turkish vibe, this is the place to go! I ordered a few types of baklava. Was very iffy about ordering chocolate baklava because I’ve never heard such a thing. I do not regret it at all! I highly recommend that you order it with the ice cream as well! The other two types of baklava I ordered were walnut and pistachio and those were both equally as amazing as the chocolate. The tea and coffee could have been a bit better though.

One of the best patisseries in Taksim Square and around the city. They have almost all kinds of sweets and desserts, from Baklava’s to Lokum’s. You can also have a Turkish coffee or tea along with your dessert. They have several seating areas but it’s a very popular place therefore it’s always busy with tourists and locals. The prices are average. Sweets are delicious :)

Tasting the baklava here changed by life. Ok, trying not to be dramatic, it is one of the best tasting baklava I have ever had. I had to come back the next day just to get more! Fantastic.

we came here at least 4x on our istanbul trip. my husband was obsessed w/​the baklavas and lokum here. i loved the lokum here as well, particularly the pomegranate and pistachio ones. we got a lot of gifts to bring back, and they were nice enough to vacuum seal them for us.

Hafiz mustafa was one of the highlights of our trip to Istanbul last year and puts it in the same league as the Hagia Sophia and the Blue mosque! Unbelievable sutlac — turkish rice pudding — and great baklava and coffee too. The ultimate hot spot on weekday and weekend nights. It has several outlets but The sirkeci location is the best.

Hafiz Mustafa has been a hot spot for breakfast, brunch but it’s especially famous for its top-​notch bakery and desserts. All kinds of Turkish sweets are served in a typical Turkish atmosphere overlooking the sea in Eminonu near Sirkeci Train Station. A very budget friendly place. You can also bring some Turkish sweets back to your home in different sized boxes or even get it vacuum packed for your flight.

No matter how many times we tried different baklavas around the city (and we tried so many) but nothing compares to the quality of Hafiz Mustafa. The pistachios are the freshest, the pastry is the flakiest, and I can’t resist grabbing a couple of pieces daily.

This place deserves no stars at all. The service was actually non existent. We were waiting to be served but the waiters ignored us and after 10 minutes we were out the door. Go elsewhere if you want Turkish sweets.

I did not know that Unilocal covered Turkey — I’m pretty sure it didn’t when I started and last checked to see about it — or I would have added this review (and others) earlier.
Apparently they now have a branch in Taksim but we have only ever been to the original one in Eminonu/​Sirkeci area near the Yeni Cami. We first discovered it in 2004 and make it a priority to go here every time we are in Istanbul.
This is a wonderful place and a great experience for a real Turkish sweet-​and-​pastry shop. It has been run by the same family apparently since 1864 and sells a huge of range of traditional Turkish confections such as Turkish delight, other sugar candies, candied fruits and nuts of a huge range, cakes, borek, baklava and all the variations on baklava like vezir parmagi, etc. They also make tulumba and periodically lokma, both essentially a type of syrup-​soaked doughnut.
Their Turkish Delight is excellent and it’s at the top of our list for that sweet. Their mastika (retsina) flavoured one is our favourite. Their lokma are divine — crisp onb the outside, sweet, light on the inside. They make excellent bakalva with great texture, their candied chestnuts are great, they make peynir helvasi («cheese helva» — with cheese, butter, flour and sugar, it’s a regional speciality of the Aegean region, NE Greece and the west coastal region of Turkey), and they have incredible candied walnuts, husk, shell and all candied when the nuts are very young. There is a sit-​down eating area upstairs and the place has a ncie décor of tile, traditional bras-​lidded candy jars, etc., and the people are friendly and eager to serve customers.

A great spot to go for coffee /​tea and desserts! Try the many different baklavas available and the fancy Turkish delights on display! A must try even for those without a sweet tooth! :)

After two days of «turkish delights» everywhere, they use lokum as complimentary good for every tourist, we where almost full… but you must remember to keep space for Hafiz Mustafa lokum and rice pudding. The variety of delights the sell here require a menu 1 cm high (with almost 100 pages…). The rice pudding with pistacchio is a must. You cannot leave Istanbul without a gift box from this place.

One word: YUM!
On the way in, there’s someone at the door sampling Turkish delight so you can get a taste of what you’ll be in for. H-​M has a wide variety of Turkish delight, ranging from simple and inexpensive, to more expensive varieties — but make no mistake, all are excellent. You can purchase individual pieces, or boxes (you can select the size of the box as well as your flavors) — the boxes will be weighed to determine price, if I’m not mistaken. My personal favorite is the Pomegranate/​pistachio — it is to die for! The chocolate/​pistachio ain’t so bad either.
H-​M also has a huge selection of Baklava. Now, I’m generally not a fan of Baklava because I find it to be too sweet. That being said, the Baklava that I had in Istanbul was amazing — oozing honey, incredibly moist and flavorful but not sickeningly sweet. H-​M makes a mean Baklava — check it! You can also have pastries or pudding if Turkish delight and Baklava don’t appeal to you. Though if that’s the case, I think you might have a problem ;-)
I found all items to be pretty reasonably priced, however if you visit less touristy areas of Istanbul, you may find that prices are lower there.

This was my friend and I’s nightcap every night while in Istanbul. The server we had each night was great. His English was just enough to have some fun, and he remembered us each time we can. Their tea is good, and the chocolate baklava was incredible. The several other desserts we tried from here were always great too. The outside is usually pretty busy so grab a seat when you can because you’re right on Taksim Square and at the end of the ever-​packed Istiklal Avenue which makes this perfect for enjoying your tea and desserts over conversation and watching the people walk by. It’s also great seeing the police continually keeping the taxi drivers from parking in front of here, providing never ending entertainment.
I would recommend the sahlep if you’ve never had it. It was new to me, and very good for a cold night.

This was my very last stop on my trip in Istanbul. We walked by this shop almost every day for two weeks, and only went in the night before my early morning flight home. We poked our noses in a couple days before, and when I suggested we get some baklava and watch a movie to stay awake the last few hours, this is where we stopped.
We chatted with a friendly employee before my SO decided we needed half a kilo of the stuff. The man behind the counter pulled a box and started throwing in random pieces, arranging them to squeeze in as many as he could. The box was full, and we weighed it and it was a bit over half, but we weren’t complaining. Half a kilo is a little over 20TL here, we paid them and went back to the hotel.
There were so many choices when we opened the box. Different shapes, different sizes, light pastry, green pastry, walnuts, pistachio… We sampled a couple and while they were good, we still had better in previous days. There were certainly no complaints, and I wrapped the bag up and stuck it in my carry-​on. I figured it would be my luck the TSA would confiscate it at JFK thinking it’s some kind of delicious edible explosive, but that wasn’t the case. Even sitting sideways (thanks to the way my bag was in the overhead) they survived getting jostled around, though the syrup definitely leaked into the plastic bag. I had a sugar high almost daily for a week! Anyway… it was a pretty solid stop (at like midnight on a Saturday night) and would definitely stop by again if I was back in the area.