COMMUNITY’S BEST… CHOCOLATIER IN ISTANBUL

Do you love specialty handcrafted chocolate? Or are you currently seeking out Istanbul’s finest vegan hot coco? Either way, I bring to you Made By Mari, my favourite place for chocolate in the whole world.

Last month, I made the plunge and moved to Kadıköy in Istanbul. Quite frankly, this was one of the best decisions of my life – the city is so beautiful and vibrant, has some of the best food I’ve ever tasted (hello, simit and kaymak!), and is filled with the nicest people.

Plus, as it happens, the best chocolate shop I’ve ever visited.

On a small side street in Kadıköy stands a chocolate shop with the words L’ATELIER DU CHOCOLAT plastered across it. You will find a sleepy white cat stretched across one of the chairs outside, students and travellers cradling creamy hot chocolates, and the sweet scent of raw cacao drifting out onto the street. Trust your nose and follow it inside, and you will be greeted by Mari and her husband Murat.

Inside, illustrations of the bean-to-bar processes decorate the wall, a large counter is filled with shiny, perfect chocolates, and Mari weaves sheer magic into her moulds next to a tempering machine.

On one cosy Wednesday afternoon, I sat down and inhaled the familiar scent of chocolate. By this point, I had visited the shop almost every day for a month, and tasted something new and a little special each time. But now, I sat down with a pen and paper, and asked Mari about her chocolate.

THE BEST HANDCRAFTED CHOCOLATE IN ISTANBUL

‘The shop started up in 2020, Pandemic Time,’ she told me. ‘It wasn’t an easy time to start but it did give me the opportunity to invest in good chocolate machines and equipment.

‘Before this, I’d spent a few years working at Cargill, one of the world’s top suppliers of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products. I’d attended an initial chocolatier course in the Netherlands, and then a second in Belgium. But that last one focused on industrial chocolate,’ she grimaced. ‘Now, I refuse to touch industrial chocolate. They have too many sugars and bad preservatives – have you ever noticed how they don’t melt?”

Murat brought over a pot of cacao beans, still in their husks, and I popped one into my mouth. It was as though I were eating the very essence of chocolate.

‘First, we temper the chocolate,’ Mari told me. ‘We do it in three stages: first at 45°C, then 28°C, and then 33°C. This is where the chocolate gets the beautiful shine and that nice cracking sound when you bite into it.’

Murat handed me one of their Malakoff-inspired chocolates, and Mari was right: it cracked when I bit into it. It was no wonder the Malakoff was one of their most popular chocolates: as a praline with almond and hazelnut flakes, coated in dark chocolate, it was nothing short of divine.

‘We use the best bean you can get – the Criollo bean from Ecuador – and source all of the chocolate fillings from local producers. We want to support local growers, and no matter how expensive it can be, it is always worth it.’

She then asked me if I’d ever tasted a cherry-flavoured chocolate before, and I shook my head. My mouth began to water.

‘I just made this one,’ she explained, passing one to me. ‘You’ll be the first person to taste this new flavour.’

The chocolate cracked when I bit into it, and my mouth was flooded with the perfect balance of sweet, spicy, and a little cherry sourness. It was perfect.

Once I’d wiped the chocolate from my mouth, I asked where she got her ideas from.

‘I get inspiration from everywhere – friends, flavours I’ve enjoyed in food, anything. I experiments all the time, and then chocolate like this is created.

‘I’ve had a love for chocolate since forever, and I know that I will continue to love making chocolate forever. Even when I’m old and retired, I will still make chocolate.’

Murat added, ‘she will never stop being creative with the chocolate – for her, it’s an art. And there’s nothing she loves more than people loving what she creates.’

Mari has a few favourite chocolates. Of course, she loves the Malakoff – everyone does – but she also loves the sesame and tahini truffle. With this one, your tastebuds meet with the earthiness of the tahini, the sweetness of the chocolate, and an aftertaste that is reminiscent of halva.

‘But everyday I eat the hazelnut chocolate,’ Mari added. ‘It’s my breakfast. And the hazelnuts are from here, they’re so good!’

THE BEST VEGAN HOT CHOCOLATE IN ISTANBUL

I looked over her shoulder and noticed that there, on their laptop screen, was the landing page of Wandering Everywhere. It made me feel almost shy.

‘We read your blog post about the best hot chocolates in Europe,’ Murat said. ‘So we’re going to make you a vegan hot chocolate, our style.’

When the coco came out with a little chocolate biscuit straw, my eyes almost began to water at the sight of it. I’d been craving a hot chocolate for months, and finally, I could wholeheartedly indulge myself on the thickest, creamiest, and sweetest hot coco in Istanbul, Turkey, and possibly the whole world.

I could have consumed bucketfuls of it.

‘Do you like it?’ Mari asked.

‘It’s the only thing I ever want to drink.’

Murat laughed, and then Mari lowered leant in a little closer.

‘Do you want to know about my dream?’

‘Of course!’

She decided to explain it in Turkish, and Murat translated for her.

‘Five years ago,’ Murat began, ‘Mari put a photo on our fridge of a chocolate shop in Paris. She told me that this was all she could ever imagine herself doing – it was her life. She’d never wanted anything so badly, and it was everything that she was going to aim for.

‘After years of seeing this photograph everyday and wishing that it was real, she finally opened this shop here. So I took a photograph of it and replaced the fridge photo of Paris. Because finally, she’d made it. Her dream had come true.’

Over the next half an hour we shared stories of our travels and Murat pulled out shots of homemade cherry liquor. An old vinyl played soft music in the background, the white cat stretched outside, and I rubbed hot coco residue from my chin.

Finally, taking a small bag of chocolates with me, I thanked them both for their time.

Mari smiled. ‘This feels almost like… fate.’

And with my heart warm from new friends, a new home, and hot coco, I left.