On a sunny corner of Chillingham Road you’ll find Heaton’s hottest new brunch spot – Mokka Café & Bakery.
The menu at the female-led business – run by 25-year-old Zara Hadid and her auntie Sevim Kaplan, 42 – offers a fusion of Turkish and British breakfast dishes. Open less than two months, Mokka has begun to attract the attention of locals with its pastel interior and enticing pastry counter.
The Turkish breakfast is a sight to behold – with numerous small dishes arriving at your table alongside baskets of freshly baked bread. There’s Feta, marinated olives, cherry tomatoes served alongside milk jam, tahini with molasses, and homemade strawberry preserve. These are accompanied by mememen – eggs poached with fresh tomatoes and green peppers – or sucuk, a homemade Turkish spicy beef sausage, served in copper pans.
In the kitchen, a huge pile of fresh ripe tomatoes is being chopped to make the mememen. “We use all authentic, fresh ingredients, and make every item ourselves,” says Zara. “We’re making it exactly how we’d have it in Turkey.”
The speciality here is simit – a twisted pastry topped with toasted sesame seeds, served like a bagel with mozzarella in the centre.
For Zara, who grew up in Kent, it has been important to embrace both her British and Turkish heritage in the menu, so Sevim has expanded her bakery repertoire to include sausage rolls and cheese and onion pastries.
“When it comes to the bakery, it’s all my auntie,” adds Zara. “She came to Newcastle from Istanbul six years ago and decided to start baking from home and selling. She has excelled so much in what she does. I had been running a restaurant in Cardiff, and I started saying to her we should really open a café together. One day, my auntie called me and said she’d found an amazing location in Newcastle. I booked a flight from Bristol the next day and when I looked at this place I just knew we had to try for it.”
Zara had dreamed of opening a café long before the perfect location popped up on Chillingham Road. “I was visiting Istanbul in 2018 and I remember writing milk jam in my notebook because I was putting together all these ideas for when I would open a café.” A sweet, thick caramel-like spread, milk jam was introduced to the Middle East from Argentina in the 1950s and has become a staple breakfast item in Turkey – with Zara and Sevim perfecting the recipe at Mokka.
Zara’s enthusiasm and passion for every dish is evident as they are brought out and described. “It’s a family business and we genuinely love doing this,” she says. “I couldn’t fake that, I do it every day. We tried so many times over the last four years to find the right place and we’re finally here.”
Mokka Café & Bakery is open daily from 8am-6pm (Sundays 9am-5pm) at 245 Chillingham Road (NE6 5LL)
