Fadya Bekta's spanakopita is a delicate delight. The warm triangular pies brushed with olive oil are plump packages of fresh spinach, cheeses and eggs. It’s a revelation to slowly peel back layers of syrup-soaked filo and nuts on a piece of pistachio baklava.
These and other mouth-watering flavors are offered kindly in the warm space of Kismet Cafe. As its name suggests, Bekta’s decision to open a place of her own in Lafayette wasn't a random chance.
After a long, successful career in video and film production and management, advertising and media, Bekta lost her job during the COVID pandemic. Suddenly, she was at home with her two young children and lots of free time.
“My daughter said, ‘Well, Mom, you always say you can’t make baklava because it's so time consuming. Now you have time,’” Bekta recalls. “We made a batch and she said, ‘We should sell this to our neighbors.’”
She did, becoming a staple at the Louisville Farmers Market for the past few years before opening Kismet Cafe in October. The eatery sits near the corner of 95th Street and Arapahoe.
“People told me they could taste the love in my baklava,” Bekta says. “That’s when I decided they shouldn’t have to wait until farmers market season. I wanted to open a place where people could get together and eat some food that brings them comfort.”
Slowing down
The love that people taste has its roots in Bekta’s childhood. She grew up in Queens, a lively borough of New York City, trailing after her Albanian-Greek mother.
“From the time I was five years old, I followed my mom around the kitchen,” Bekta says. “She never had a recipe or measured anything, so I had to watch. I was persistent because I loved food.”
The family had strong connections to Turkey, inspiring a Turkish coffee service that has become a major draw at Kismet Cafe.
“You have to wait a few minutes for a Turkish coffee,” she says. “To brew it, you have to watch over it. There’s no button that presses a shot out. If you're having a Turkish coffee, it’s a ritual that is supposed to be slow. My mom used to say: ‘The coffee doesn’t wait for you; you wait for the coffee.’”
Slowing down extends to the food Kismet serves. Diners sometimes mistake the cafe for a quick Greek sandwich restaurant, Betka says.
“People come in looking for gyros, but we're a cafe. It’s the opposite of fast food. This is where you breathe and slow down.”
That, too, was learned at the family dinner table.
“I remember going to Greece and Turkey on family trips and sitting down for breakfast around 11 o'clock,” she recalls. “There's this smorgasbord of food on a huge table that is just mind boggling. We would sit at the table for two hours and talk.”
Nibbles and noshes
Kismet has the perfect dish for a lingering, conversational lunch: the popular traditional Turkish mezze plate.
“It’s a bunch of different tastes on a platter that you nibble at,” Bekta says. “That's intuitively how I like to eat.”
The platter features rice-stuffed grape leaf dolma, freshly baked flatbread, soft, salty Greek cheese and cucumbers. Kismet sources the yogurt-based tzatziki, baba ganoush or hummus savory dips from Thornton’s appropriately named Yummy Yummy Products. Completing the lineup are filo-wrapped spanakopita.
“When guests see the mezze, they immediately start talking about the food,” Betka says. “It's not just sticking a muffin in your mouth.”
The Cafe’s savory side includes Greek salads with sheep-milk feta and gluten-free sfougato, a hearty Greek quiche packed with potatoes, caramelized onions and bell peppers.
Many visitors pair coffee or organic herbal tea with a treat like koulourakia butter cookies or bougatsa, a warm custard cream pie topped with crispy filo strips. Bekta bakes sweet, challah-like rolls dense enough to dunk and ideal for making French toast.
Baklava remains the star of the dessert array. Three varieties feature filo sheets layered with ground pistachios, walnuts or pecans and herb-infused syrup. (Bekta prides herself on her baklava being vegan.)
Meant to be
If you’re lucky, Karim Amirfathi will be in the house and available for Turkish coffee readings, the centuries-old fortune telling tradition. A café regular, the Iranian-born Amirfathi is well-known to farmers market shoppers in Boulder and Longmont for products from his Altan Alma Farm.
Bekta has been surprised by the faces appearing at her front door.
“There is actually a lot of ethnic diversity in the Boulder County area, including at CU,” she says. “It’s people from Iran, Greece, Turkey or people who have visited. They are warmed by the fact that we have Turkish coffee.”
One cafe wall displays various goods including jars of Greek caramelized sweet onion jam, beautiful Persian textiles and small intricately woven carpets.
Kismet Cafe is open some evenings as a space for local cultural community events and for book groups to meet. Bekta plans to expand the menu and hours in the coming months as well as inviting more local musicians to perform.
“We're not just selling the coffee or carpets,” Bekta says. “We're explaining their cultural significance.”
A few months into operation, Kismet Cafe has become more than a simple COVID-era career change for Bekta.
“Kismet,” she says, “is what you are destined to do.”
John Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles and Kitchen Table Talk on KGNU: kgnu.org/category/radio-nibbles.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Kismet's baklava contained honey. It is vegan.