Turkey I: Time Travel on the Hippie Trail

Namik Çolpan at his Pudding Shop in Istanbul

He sits quietly in front of his restaurant, a glass of tea in hand, his gaze fixed on everything: cars zipping along the street; people hurrying past between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia; and, of course, especially those turning in from the sidewalk and passing him to enter the Pudding Shop. Namik Çolpan watches them with satisfaction and says, “We are world famous.”

He’s actually right, and he should know, because he owns the shop after all. He opened it in 1957, together with his brother Idris—and no one could have guessed back then what this small restaurant in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district, and indeed the entire world, would soon become. The 1960s arrived, the Vietnam War raged, and a rebellious generation set out on journeys toward India. Along their journey, the hippie trail, there were a few milestones. One of them was the Pudding Shop. This was where people met and hung out before continuing via Kabul and the Khyber Pass on to Goa or Rishikesh. In short: Anyone who has ever dreamt of freedom and let their hair grow long should know the Pudding Shop.

Namik Çolpan was never a flower child; even the old photos always show him with a strictly coiffed haircut. But he clearly liked the young people from all over the world who had chosen this place as their hippie headquarters. He even allowed them to give the place a different name. The actual name is Lale Restaurant, but customers apparently couldn’t remember that. What everyone easily remembered were the delicious desserts, especially the rice pudding spiced with cinnamon.

The name became a brand, and the pudding is still available today. Little remains of the old flair, however, other than the photos on the wall from those good old days - and, of course, the legendary bulletin board to the right of the counter. Before the internet, this was the information exchange, the inter-board. Messages were pinned here for coming travelers. They were about love or farewell, but above all, offers or inquiries regarding continuing on the hippie trail.

Today, nostalgia is also cultivated on the bulletin board and y.ou know what you owe the place:  “Elmar and Anna were here, love and peace,” it says. Another has left a photo of the Dalai Lama, you can never go wrong with that. And a British guest, recalls their first visit in 1975. “Now I’ve come back with my daughter,” the note reads. “I’m so glad the bulletin board is still here.”

There’s a lot of praise and much rejoicing here. But if you don’t look at the bulletin board, but rather at the internet, you quickly realize that the world out there has changed. Fewer flowers, more thorns. On Tripadvisor, the Pudding Shop has a mere 3.5 out of 5 stars, and the “atmosphere” is rated at a mediocre 3.2. One person writes of the “worst food in Istanbul,” and another warns: “Don’t go there.”

But what else are they supposed to do in the Pudding Shop other than polish their own patina.  It’s true, the Pudding Shop is a faded myth, and the brand has been monetized as best as it can. When tourists or entire tour groups arrive, the waiters ply them with whatever fast-food fare there is to offer. Where everything used to be relaxed, there’s now a hectic rush of busy life. And the music blaring from the speakers is probably hard to enjoy even while stoned. The chic Espressolab next door certainly has better coffee, and the surrounding rooftop restaurants offer better views of domes and minarets. Here, they only serve yesterday’s pudding.

But there’s also Namik Çolpan, the proprietor, who represents the old days and who carries the old stories within him. And when the lunch rush is over, when he has a little time and leisure, those stories come alive again. “I’m an old man today,” he says. But of course, he still comes to his restaurant every day, and as he tells stories, he becomes young again.

“They parked their VW buses over there,” he explains, pointing down the street. “And what they ate today, they paid for tomorrow; that wasn’t a problem.” He pulls out two books containing memories of the pudding shop, one in Turkish, one in German. He signs the Turkish one as a gift. “The hippies,” he says, “were good people.”

Istanbul, July 2025

Translation: Lisa Kremer