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Jan 19
Tuesday
News, Reviews (Eats)
Dürümzade: Wrap Artists (and Television Stars)

wrapstars
Editor’s note: This review first appeared back in April of 2009. Turns out the “wrap stars” at Dürümzade were among the stars of last night’s episode of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” show, which recently visited Istanbul. In honor of Dürümzade’s newfound television success, we decided to offer this “rerun” of our original writeup.

Istanbul’s after-midnight dining options tend to be of the offal variety – tripe soup, chopped lamb’s intestines – thought to be curatives after a night of hard drinking. Luckily, not all late night eats in the city involve innards. At Dürümzade – a grill joint positioned right on the fringe of the rowdy, bar-lined streets of the Beyoğlu’s fish market – we’ve found a dürüm, or Turkish wrap, that’s equally satisfying at 2 a.m. or 2 p.m.

If a sandwich is only as good as its bread, then any dürüm discussion is all about the lavaş, the Turkish tortilla that’s used to make it. Dürümzade’s thin ovular lavaş, rubbed with a mix of red pepper and spices, is far from the stiff, uniform discs found at many other dürüm joints. Like a good thin pizza crust, Dürümzade’s lavaş is filled with textural variations, bubbles, crispy edges and moist, chewy pockets. Stacked and hidden away, it incubates in a drawer below the charcoal grill.

The glass cooler at the front of the restaurant holds the choices for filling the lavaş: chicken kebab (tavuk şiş), spicy minced beef (Adana kebab) or mild minced beef (Urfa kebab). (Chicken wings are also on offer, but since you can’t wrap them in flatbread they are not a part of this discussion.)

The skewered meat is put on a grill, which is fanned to the desired heat by the portly fellow guarding the lavaş. After one rotation of the skewer, out comes the wrap from its drawer. The grill master then drapes it over the kebabs cooking over the coals, creating a smoky tent for the meat while keeping the lavaş off of the fire directly. As the lavaş tent heats up, the spice rub on the wrap imparts its flavor onto the skewered meat below. While the lavaş is still flexible, the usta (“master” in Turkish) pulls it from the grill and covers it with a bed of chopped parsley, sumac-dusted onions and tomatoes, onto which he lays the freshly grilled meat from the skewer. Then, like a cowboy deftly rolling a cigarette, he makes the dürüm (which will set you back a measly 3.50 liras). But before handing it over to the now salivating customer, he puts the whole thing back on the grill for a final crisping.

Now that’s a wrap.

Address: Kalyoncu Küllük Caddesi 26/A, Beyoğlu
Telephone: 212-249-0147

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2 Responses to “ Dürümzade: Wrap Artists (and Television Stars) ”
  1. RL Reeves Jr

    Dec 4, 2011
    Reply

    heading on back to Istanbul in February. My thoughts on Durumzade http://chowpapi.com/wordpress/wordpress-2.8.6/wordpress/?p=1522
    can’t wait to get back to hit Musa’s lokanta over in Kumkapi too.

  2. Has there been a change of ownership at Dürümzade recently? Was there last night and didn’t see any of the usual fellows manning the grill, and the dürüms (sad to say) tasted kind of uninspired…


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