Nory Candy & Pastry

They are closed. Their prepackaged items can be purchased at a market a couple miles away.

Extremely knowledgeable and kind individuals at this place! Great service! Keep it up

Let me start by saying that I love locum (aka Turkish delight) and have been enjoying it for years. It’s hard to find a place that sells it in the Los Angeles area, and even if you do, most of the imported brands are not that tasty. After some research, I came across Nory’s, and after my first box, I went right back and bought 4 more. I can honestly say they’re the best around! He has a very good selection of flavors (my personal favorites are the rose, licorice, and bergamot). If you’ve had locum before and want to try something different, I highly recommend the bergamot. Armand (the owner) imports the bergamot from Greece to make a very exotic and aromatic flavor that is irresistible! If you like Earl Grey tea, it goes perfect with it, since most Earl Grey contains a little bit of bergamot. I had the pleasure of meeting Armand, and he is very kind, and if you order online, you’ll receive it no time! Thank you very much Armand for you delicious locum, and keep up the good work!

THE BEST. Taste-​wise, service-wise…there is no comparison. I bought some boxes last year for a friend who grew up on Turkish Delights. I always hated the stuff. These converted me. The best texture… absolutely delicious. I had a small problem with online ordering last year and called and spoke to a man (sorry — can’t remember his name) and he was just the friendliest, most helpful person. Really a pleasure to do business with. I ordered again this year and got the same great service and product. Can’t say enough good things about these guys.

Delicious pastry…

I can’t even stress enough how much I love this candy. First of all I saw this place on tv and I bookmarked it thinking that if I ever go to LA ill make a point to come here. I called in to see what time their open till and lucky enough I had enlighten time to go, best decision of my life, seriously. Armand is beyond nice and made me a couple of boxes of some super fresh supreme squares and a box of assorted. I brought these all the way back to NY and out of all the shopping I did in LA this was the most coveted gift I got for myself and others. Sure I can buy Turkish delight in Ny and of course after these ran out I bought some from the super market and I had to throw them out. Yup Nory has spoiled me! Luckily I can order it from them directly and I can always have some. This is a must try !!! you won’t regret it!

Nory isn’t a real store front per-​se but what’s made inside is very much worth getting. If you’ve been struck by a desire for Turkish delight (Admit it, you read Chronicles of Narnia) and been tried some of the boxed selections available in local grocery stores only to be utterly disappointed in the hard, chalky crap offered then this is the place to order from. The locum may not be as good as Haci Bekr’s in Istanbul or Harrod’s in London but is very close and the local locations means unlike the other two it’ll arrive fresh and without the boot prints of airmail staff all over them.

Three generations of Turkish delight in Southern California
Nory Hovagimian opened Nory Candy & Pastry in Hollywood in 1964. Dickran Jibilian bought the candy-​making business and moved it to the San Fernando Valley in 1981. Now owner Armand Sahakian runs the show.
January 06, 2011|By Jenn Garbee, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Tucked in the back room of a tiny powdered-​sugar-​dusted San Fernando Valley storefront, Armand Sahakian patiently tends to the sweet syrup bubbling in two giant copper caldrons. Six days a week, the owner of Nory Candy & Pastry delicately flavors each batch with citrusy drops of bergamot oil, rosewater or the essences of various fruits, then pours the candy into wooden trays to cool into gelée-​like locum, the confection known as Turkish delight.
That this story isn’t one of C.S. Lewis’ Turkish delight-​filled «Chronicles of Narnia» fantasies is clear from the Winnetka shop’s parking lot, where the weathered Nory Locum sign is wedged between those for a nail salon and dry cleaners. But for this Armenian candy maker, what lies behind that front door really is a fantasy of sorts.
Sahakian and his mentor, the candy shop’s 71-​year-​old former owner, Dickran Jibilian, have been sharing their favorite childhood sweet with their adopted country since long before the box-​office-​driven surge in demand for Nory’s Turkish delight. And in the process they’ve developed an unexpected father-​and-​son-​like bond.
«We just connected; it was one of those amazing moments,» says Sahakian, who took over the shop a couple of years ago and is covered in almost as much snowy-​white cornstarch and powdered sugar as the candy he makes.
Jibilian and his wife, Armen, immigrated to Southern California from Egypt and purchased the Turkish delight factory more than 30 years ago from Nory Hovagimian, an Armenian immigrant from Romania. Hovagimian had opened the small candy shop in Hollywood in 1964, and the Jibilians moved the company to its current location in 1981.
FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this story and a headline gave an incorrect last name, Bastdmajian, for former owner Nory Hovagimian.
Around the same time, Sahakian’s family had fled Lebanon because of the country’s civil war and arrived in Pasadena with their 14-​year-​old son. «Even though Dickran, [Hovagimian] and I are from different places, we’re all Armenian so we all grew up eating Turkish delight,» says Sahakian. The soft, chewy candy, which originated in the Ottoman Empire as early as the 16^th century, is widely available throughout the Middle East and central Europe today.
As a teenager, Sahakian says he often picked up the Nory’s walnut version of the marshmallow-​like sweet to make a common Lebanese snack. «You flatten the locum between cookies to make something like s’mores,» he says, picking up and pulling a chubby nut-​filled square to demonstrate its flexibility.
He and Jibilian met in 2009 when Sahakian happened upon the shop’s «for sale» listing online. «I think Dickran really wanted someone to buy the shop who he felt was right for it,» Sahakian says.
But candy making was not always in Sahakian’s dreams. During the 1990s, he owned two shoe repair shops in Newport Beach. «I had trained to be a shoe repairman like my father, but at some point making orthotics wasn’t all that interesting anymore,» he says.
Sahakian traded his shoehorns for a candy thermometer shortly after signing up for cooking classes at Fullerton’s Orange County School of Culinary Arts (now the Culinary Arts Institute). He worked his way through several hotel kitchens, including the Sofitel in Los Angeles, before landing a job as the director of food services at Santa Anita Park.“Working at the racetrack was a really great, fun job until I had kids,” Sahakian says. «I wanted to spend more time with them.» Jibilian’s «for sale» listing came around at just the right time.
This wasn’t the type of business transaction that involved handing over a check in exchange for the front door keys. «I trained under him for months, following his every move,» recalls Sahakian, as he scrapes down the sides of the copper pot with a metal paint scraper to prevent the caramelization of the cornstarch-​laden sugar syrup.
Nory Candy & Pastry’s former owner now stops by the shop weekly to check on his prodigy. «Dickran comes in, pokes at the candy and says, ‘This batch is good, yes, yes,’» says Sahakian, smiling. «He really treats me like a son.»
Sahakian checks the consistency of the simmering syrup and deems it satisfactory, then adds a few squeezes of bergamot oil from a dropper. «It’s not a smell that many [Americans] know,» he says of the bitter citrus oil, adding that Middle Eastern shops are still his primary buyers for the traditional locum flavors such as rose, mint, licorice and bergamot (the nut varieties are more like a chewy nut brittle packed with toasted almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios or walnuts).
Once the flavorings have been added, Sahakian pours the syrup int