World Foodie Guide

The second guest post on World Foodie Guide comes from Istanbul Eats, the definitive guide to eating in Istanbul, Turkey (another of my must-visit places listed in 25 Food & Travel Destinations). ‘Serious food for serious eaters’? Perfect! Over to Ansel and Yigal…

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Beyond the kebab – and what you will find listed in most guidebooks to Istanbul – lies a wide range of unique Turkish regional cuisines and restaurants with hints of Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern cooking. Here’s an opinionated list of top ten restaurants and food shops in the city, from A(bracadabra) to Z(ubeyir), from Istanbul Eats, the Serious Eater’s Guide to the City.

Abracadabra — This funky informal restaurant, housed in an imposing Ottoman-era mansion located smack dab on the Bosporus, serves some of Istanbul’s most creative riffs on traditional Turkish cuisine, courtesy of its spunky owner-chef Dilara Erbay. A pioneer of Turkish fusion cuisine, Erbay’s dishes are visually stunning, delicious and ever changing.

When it’s time to order, we usually put ourselves at the tender mercy of Dilara, letting her guide us through the menu, which includes her latest inspired creations, prepared with what’s fresh in the markets. Like a jazzman interpreting on an old standard, Dilara hints at classic Turkish cuisine sometimes in little more than name, for example tweaking the classic börek into a bouquet of matchstick skinny, 6-inch batons served upright in a shot glass of sweet and spicy sauce, both beautiful and fun to eat.

Address: 50/1 Arnavutkoy Cad. Arnavutkoy, Istanbul
Phone: (212) 358-6087
www.abracadabra-ist.com

Altan Sekerleme — At the airport, Turkish Delight, or lokum, may be sold in neat vacuum-sealed boxes. But in the front window at Altan Şekerleme, a sweets shop in a rarely explored warren of market streets and Ottoman-era caravanserais near Istanbul’s Golden Horn, it is stacked into psychedelic pyramids, laid out into long white rows that are impossibly pink or deep amber on the inside, and even built into little, Technicolor log cabins.

The shop itself – with its aged marble-topped counters and worn wooden cabinets – bears a nostalgic patina strangely absent in this ancient city. Unlike so many places that make sad attempts at recreating the “Old Istanbul,” Altan is an effortless standard-bearer of late Ottoman authenticity. That’s probably because the same family has been running this operation in the same shop for four generations.

The perfumed gül lokum, or rosewater Turkish Delight, is almost a sensual experience, right up there with a first kiss. The sakizli, or mastic gum flavored lokum is interesting as a novelty, but not our favorite. However, the fistikli lokum, filled with hazelnuts, is a showstopper. The sublime, almost gummy confection surrounding the crunchy nut core would convince even the most committed chocoholic to buy a box of the stuff.

Address: Kiblecesme Cad. No: 96, Kantarcilar (Kucuk Pazari)/Eminonu, Istanbul
Telephone: 212-522-5909

Antiochia — In Istanbul, we’ve noted an inverse relationship between a restaurant’s atmosphere and what’s coming out of the kitchen. But that’s not the case with Antiochia – a small restaurant in Beyoglu that serves the delicious food from Turkey’s Hatay region, an area wedged between the Syrian border and the Mediterranean Sea. The place exudes cool without sacrificing flavor.

Nar eksili cevizli kozbiber, a divine relish of red and green peppers in a pomegranate dressing, was topped with crushed walnuts, adding a crunchy texture to this sweet and sour cold starter. Tasting the homemade yogurt with mint proved just how little we knew about what yogurt can be — pleasantly sour and almost as thick as butter. Another revelation was the kekik salatasi, an intense meze of green olives, fresh thyme and olive oil.

Antiochia’s main courses are simple, recognizable dishes, yet set to a higher frequency. Şiş et is a plate of marinated cubes of beef skewered and grilled over a charcoal fire. On any given evening in Beyoglu, there have got to be thousands of skewers of şiş et coming off the grill, but none are quite as tender and succulent as the one at Antiochia. The minced meat wrap, an Istanbul street food favorite, with onions and tomatoes, was among the best we’ve had in the city.

Address: Minare Sokak, Asmalimescit, Istanbul
Phone: 212-292-1100
www.antiochiaconcept.com

Besiktas Kaymakci (AKA Kaymakci Pando) — In our imagination, kaymak – the delicious Turkish version of clotted cream – is the only food served in heaven, where angels in white robes dish out plate after plate of the cloudlike stuff to the dearly departed, who no longer have to worry about cholesterol counts and visits to the cardiologist. For our money, the classic Turkish combo of kaymak served with honey and crusty white bread is one of the finest breakfasts this side of paradise. And one of our favorite places to eat this breakfast is Besiktas Kaymakci.

This tiny shop/eatery has been in business since 1895, and it certainly shows its age. The marble counter is cracked and the paint on the walls peeling. But the kaymak, served up by the 84-year-old Pando, a Turk of Bulgarian origin and a living institution in Istanbul’s untouristed Besiktas bazaar, is out of this world. Prices here also seem unchanged since 1895: a plate of kaymak and honey, served with fresh bread and a glass of steaming hot milk, will set you back 4 lira.

Address: Koyici Meydanı Sokak, Besiktas, Istanbul
Telephone: 212-258-2616

Ciya — For us, one of the highlights of eating in Istanbul is a visit to Çiya Sofrası, the Asian-side spot that is very likely the best restaurant in Istanbul. It’s certainly not the fanciest or most cutting-edge place in town, but we rarely leave Çiya without having a profoundly new and memorable taste experience.

That restaurant’s success comes from the vision of owner and chef Musa Dagdeviren, who hails from the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep and who is something of a culinary anthropologist, collecting recipes from around Turkey and even publishing a journal devoted to Turkish food culture (“Yemek ve Kultur,” sadly, only in Turkish). The end result of Musa’s digging and collecting is a menu that features unusual regional dishes that you will very likely not find anywhere else.

The menu changes according to what’s in season, and, depending on the time of year, things can get downright funky at the restaurant. This past spring, we ate a delicious meat stew cooked with bracingly tart unripe green plums, as well as keme, a mushroom found in central and eastern Anatolia that we like to think of as a Mesopotamian truffle. Cut up in slices and grilled on a skewer, this hearty fungus tastes like an earthy cross between a Portobello mushroom and a very delicate potato.

Address: Guneslibahce Sokak 43, Kadiköy, Istanbul
Phone: 216-330-3190
www.ciya.com.tr

Ismet Baba — Most fish restaurants are mere caricatures of places like Ismet Baba, where traditions have been kept sacred for more than fifty years. This may not be the best restaurant in the city, but it’s got something most of the others have lost, keeping rhythm to an old school style of Istanbul charm and character.

At Ismet Baba, located in Kuzguncuk, a charming Bosphorus neighborhood on the Asian side, we like to lean back, hunker down into a long raki-laced lunch and really enjoy this special place and its classic mezes. Pilaki, beans in olive oil, and the cold octopus salad are unusually good. We also like the haydari, a thick, tangy spread of strained yogurt and dill and the fried eggplant with a garlicky yogurt drizzle. The catch of the day is posted on a small black board in the dining room, and we found the grilled bream, cupra, or a plate of blue fish, cinekop, perfectly prepared and just the right amount.

Address: Carsi Caddesi #1A, Kuzguncuk, Istanbul
Telephone: 216-553-1232

Mandabatmaz — It’s a dirty secret nobody wants to talk about, but let’s put it out there: finding a good cup of Turkish coffee in Turkey can sometimes be very difficult. Thin and watery, rather than thick and viscous, is frequently the order of the day.
Not so over at Mandabatmaz, a tiny café off Istiklal Caddesi that makes one of Istanbul’s finest cups of Turkish coffee. The stuff brewmaster Cemil Pilik serves lives up to what Turkish coffee should be – and it better – since the café’s name roughly translates into “so thick even a water buffalo wouldn’t sink in it.”

On a recent afternoon, Pilik was busy making cup after cup of his excellent brew, thick to the point of almost being chocolaty, each demitasse holding only a few sips worth of strong coffee before you hit a rich deposit of dark brown grounds. Outside, customers were sitting on small stools, some chatting happily with friends, others silently drinking Pilik’s coffee, as if it were a kind of elixir.

Address: Olivia Geçidi No: 1/A, Beyoglu (Near the St. Antoine Cathedral on Istiklal. Look for the Barcelona Patisserie on the corner), Istanbul
Telephone: No phone

Pera Sisore — At first glance, with its steam table covered with pots of ready-made food, Pera Sisore may look like any one of those quickie lunch spots found throughout Turkey. But there’s a difference – someone here is cooking up some serious Black Sea magic in the kitchen.

The Black Sea area is Turkey’s culinary misfit – not really about kebabs or meze. It’s simple, filling, down-home food and Sisore is a great spot to get acquainted with it. This time of year, the restaurant – found on a side street in the fun Asmalimescit neighborhood – serves a very tasty version of hamsi (fresh anchovy) pilaf, the holy grail of Black Sea cooking. A kind of savory fish cake, the pilaf has small hamsi filets wrapped around a thick bed of rice infused with herbs, currants and pine nuts.

Sisore also serves up a fine version of another Black Sea staple – creamy white beans (kuru fasulye) cooked up in a rich, buttery red sauce. On any given day, Sisore has more than a dozen items bubbling away on the steam table, some typical Black Sea dishes, some not. It’s worth trying a few – it’s the easiest way to visit the Black Sea without leaving Istanbul.

Address: Oteller Sokak 6, Beyoğlu, Istanbul
Telephone: 212-245-4902

Van Kahvalti — In the city of Van, not far from Turkey’s border with Iran, breakfast has been turned into serious business: the town is filled with dozens of Kahvaltı Salonus – breakfast salons – that serve a dizzying assortment of farm fresh breakfast items day and night.

In recent years this superb breakfast has been working its way westward, with several Van-style spots now open in Istanbul. Van Kahvaltı Evi (Van Breakfast House) in the Cihangir neighborhood is one of our favorites, run by a friendly crew that serve a mean breakfast, bringing in most of their ingredients, some of them organic, from back east.

The Van breakfast takes the traditional Turkish breakfast of cheese, tomato, cucumber and some bread and turns it up several notches. At Van Kahvalti Evi, along with the standards, your breakfast plate comes with an assortment of local Van cheeses (including a very tasty one that contains brined wild herbs), kaymak (clotted cream), tangy cacik (thick yogurt spread) and murtuğa, a heavy wheat flour porridge that looks almost like scrambled eggs. Butter, jams, olives and some of Van’s famous honey round all this out – along with endless glasses of strong tea.

Address: Defterdar Yokuşu No: 52.A, Cihangir, Istanbul
Telephone: 212-293-6437

Zubeyir — Finding a kebab restaurant in Istanbul is not hard. There must be thousands of them. But finding the right kind of place, especially if you want to make it a bit more of a meal, can be surprisingly difficult. Most kebab joints tend to be no-frills, in-and-out places. Some are very good, but they don’t make for a night out. On the other hand, some of nicer places – where you can find a more extensive menu and, more importantly, drink booze with your dinner – take things too far. Tuxedoed waiters serving kebab? At the end of the day, we’re still talking about meat on a stick cooked over a fire.

Which is what makes Zubeyir – a fantastic grill house in Beyoglu that always seems to be packed with large groups having a very good time – such a refreshing find. They serve seriously good food, without taking themselves too seriously. Their Adana kebab – spicy minced lamb – has just the right combination of meat, fat and red pepper. Chicken wings (kanat) and lamb chops (pirzola) are also superbly grilled. Zubeyir also serves up some cuts of meat not found at most kebab joints, such as the tasty tarak (lamb spare ribs).

Their meze (appetizers) are also outstanding, with a sublime warm salad made from freshly grilled eggplant, tomato and onion and the gavur dagı salad – a mix of greens, herbs and tomatoes in a piquant pomegranate molasses dressing – particularly worth ordering. It’s not easy to standout in a city filled with kebab restaurants. Zubeyir does it effortlessly.

Address: Bekar Sokak 28, Beyoglu
Telephone: 212-293-3951
www.zubeyirocakbasi.com

Tags: dining out, food, food & travel, Istanbul, Istanbul Eats, restaurant review, restaurants, travel, traveleating, Turkey, Turkish