UNESCO food city — the world's greatest baklava, pistachio, and kebab culture
Gaziantep (Antep) is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy and makes the best baklava on Earth — not a subjective claim but a GI-protected product, like Champagne, made from Antep pistachios that are considered the world's finest. The city's food culture runs far deeper than baklava: lahmacun, beyran soup (lamb trotter at 6am), katmer (a flaky pastry with cream and pistachio), and over 400 catalogued local dishes make it one of the most extraordinary food cities on the planet.
Gaziantep has been settled since the Palaeolithic, sat on the Silk Road, changed hands between the Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, and Crusaders, and was finally designated 'Gazi' (warrior) by Atatürk for its fierce resistance to French occupation in 1920. The city's Zeugma Mosaic Museum contains the world's largest collection of Roman mosaics in situ, excavated from the ancient city of Zeugma before it was flooded by the Birecik dam.