Damla Pastanesi

About Damla Pastanesi

Damla Pastanesi is a neighbourhood patisserie on Gençlik Caddesi in Anıttepe, open since 1964 and still family-run. Its own profile describes it simply as "coffee, patisserie, breakfast", and a 2025 Bilkent University student guide to Ankara's rooted patisseries notes that it looks out towards Anıtkabir and is now run by Bahadır Bey, the third generation of the family. Academic research on Ankara's pastry-shop culture names Damla, together with Flamingo, as one of the patisseries opened around the Kızılay area, mostly by Hemşinli families, that are still in business today. The student guide found that, while many patisseries have reinvented themselves as trendy cafés, Damla has kept a deliberately short, traditional menu: colourful display cases of chocolate éclairs, acıbadem almond biscuits and layer cakes, with coffee made from good beans now added alongside tea. Custom cakes can be ordered, and the family says demand peaks around holidays. Getting there: parking on Gençlik Caddesi is hard to find. Minibuses between Kızılay and Emek or Bahçelievler stop outside, and it is an eight to ten minute walk from Maltepe station on the Ankaray line. It pairs naturally with a visit to Anıtkabir, Atatürk's mausoleum, a short distance away.