Monday
Reviews (Eats)Datlı Maya: Oven of Wonders
About eight years ago, in a cozy little dining room off of an open kitchen, we first encountered the chef Dilara Erbay, who, in her trademark Turko-English patois, barked orders at us and her kitchen staff, thoroughly charmed our table and, most importantly, created delicious, inspired food. Sticking close to traditional Turkish recipes with a subtle tweak or two, our meal that night felt entirely spontaneous, at a time when dining out in Istanbul was mostly predictable. The restaurant had a name but it was really just Dilara’s place to experiment with whatever she picked up from the market that day. She’d promote the night’s creations by SMS messages filled with exclamation points and made-up words. Its location, on the tacky French Street, was not even enough to deter us from becoming regular customers until its final days.
Dilara then surfaced for a short tenure in the kitchen of Cezayir, a grand space just around the corner from her old place on French Street. Her touch was apparent for a while but it quickly faded with her departure. Then at Abracadabra, the behemoth on the Bosphorus – complete with a merchandise line – that was her next venture, we saw bright, encouraging moments – usually when Dilara was in the kitchen for the night – eclipsed by stormy mismanagement. The entrée side of the menu featured a troubled marriage of Turkish and Thai, but the starters were all classic Dilara material. The fragrance of her cinnamon-laced Armenian rice, in essence stuffed mussels without the shell, stays with us to this day. But the restaurant never seemed fully settled. It’s closing, though certainly a low moment, must have been of some relief to Dilara’s fans and perhaps even to the chef herself.
Most recently, we started getting Facebook messages in that familiar Dilara-speak (eg. “…kurufasuliye, hot n sexy”) sent from a place called Datlı Maya, the itinerant chef’s latest project, housed in an old Cihangir simit bakery that she recently purchased. Decorated in a rustic utilitarian style, without even the embellishment of a wait staff, the center of attention here is the old oven, as it should be. Modified to burn gas a long time ago, Dilara restored the oven to its previous wood-burning glory, scalped a master baker from Antakya and the concept was born: traditional Turkish food prepared with a chef’s attention to detail and cooked by a true usta in the smoky, natural heat of the oven. That means lahmacun (we prefer the one with onion), pide (don’t miss the one with ground beef and pistachio), a daily güveç (i.e. dishes, from stews to white beans, slow-cooked in a clay pot), a spinach and spicy Antakya cheese börek that is in a category all it’s own, and a rotating cast of traditional breads, including the old sesame-studded simit. There are playful drinks on offer like gazoz and little bottles of ayran, but we prefer to belly up for bottomless çay from the hulking samovar in the corner of the dining room.
Most days, Dilara works with Saban usta, who stands with a slight stoop, bringing him right to the height of the over door. For Dilara, the enterprise almost looks like an apprenticeship, with the veteran chef up to her elbows in ground lamb for tepsi kebabı while the usta feeds the oven with a long wooden paddle. Turning away from Abracadabra’s arty fusion cuisine, chauffeured clientele and sweeping views to a business whose only assets are an oven and a delivery scooter might seem like an odd choice for an ambitious chef. But it’s one we applaud and sincerely hope to be indicative of a developing trend, one that sees greater cooperation between the traditional usta and the trained chef.
Within the strict boundaries of what constitutes traditional Turkish food, there is no magic sauce to fall back on. It’s all about technique and the quality of materials, subtleties that Dilara is not skimping on here. Rather than reinventing the baked bean, her kitchen is manipulating every detail to tap vast reserves of flavor that many similar businesses left back in their hometowns when they made their migration to Istanbul. What you get here is delicious village food fresh from the oven, served in Dilara’s way, and once again as spontaneous as when she first fed us eight years ago.
Datlı Maya’s Facebook page probably does the best job of summing up what the restaurant is all about. Beside a photo of a dump truck delivering a pile of wood for the oven, it simply says: “If we have wood, we have fire and if we have fire, we can make lovely food!”
Address: Türkgücü Cad. No: 59/A, Cihangir (behind Firuzağa Mosque)
Telephone: +902122929057
Web: www.datlimaya.com
Open every day, 8am-midnight
(photo by Monique Jaques)
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Post Tags: bakery, Beyoğlu, Istanbul Eats, Istanbul restaurants, kebab, pide, specialty foods
Nov 28, 2011
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The simitci that this replaced was rather eccentric… I bought breakfast from him nearly every day for a year. He would shout, or perhaps croak, “Boooyyrrrruuum” whenever anyone passed followed by the simple command “simit ye!” We had a funny love-hate relationship where sometimes he’d be (very) frustrated when I didn’t know the name of some esoteric poğaça or took too long to decide what I wanted. “Ne istersen oğlum!?” He’d shout. Other times he was endearing and would give me a free cookie or two for the road.
Nov 30, 2011
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What a great review: I want to eat this food right now and experience the results of this fascinating partnership of usta and chef. I hope this place is still there when next I make it to Istanbul. How I wish I’d gone to Istanbul in the 90s when I had a chance: to have seen the place change so much must be absolutely fascinating.
Anyway, fantastic writing as always, guys/gals; it’s this sort of thoughtful, contextually sensitive stuff that makes me come back every day to see if there’s some amazing new material to read (and which makes me sing your praises to anyone who will listen, really).
Teşekkürler!
Nov 30, 2011
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Thanks Nemorino,
I think Datli Maya will be around for a while. Not to worry. As long as we find exciting places like this one, we’ll keep writing them up.
Dec 3, 2011
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Guys, thanks for the long awaited news! And so timely: what else can you do on a dull winter day but sitting by a large stone oven or gigantic samovar, sipping tea and savoring one baked delight after another? I went immediately: the place is fairytalish, the food is fantastic – authentic and original at the same time – and the folk is amazingly welcoming. Great honest meal – gotta be hit this winter!
Dec 4, 2011
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We were here today with Meghan. It was the second stop of a six hour feast! The kitchen is so quaint and tien the climb to’ the dining room is filled with surprises, only to be surpassed by the incredibile simit and other wonderful offerings. Magnificente!
Dec 31, 2011
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I highly recommend this restaurant. The cozy, personal and friendly atmosphere combined with lovingly cooked food (the pide was particularly divine) makes for a highly satisfying experience. Can’t wait to go again!
Feb 11, 2012
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Came to Erbay’s new spot today for lunch but the oven had not warmed sufficiently for use. The house was feasting on Turkish breakfast but I really wanted to eat out of that oven. They did manage to warm up a bowl of substantial seafood soup which I devoured along with a hunk of yesterday’s bread.
Very cool, eccentric little spot.
Hope to re-visit perhaps late one afternoon when the coals are hot.
Feb 11, 2012
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We heard rumors about the seafood soup staff meal. Glad to hear you got in on that. Do return for the baked goods and guvec. You won’t be disappointed.
Mar 25, 2012
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I have been once at his place and I would never go back again. Ok, the food may be good but the service is a shame. We had a terrible experience with my friend. We asked for two different soups for each, one vegetable and one nettle soup.. But the waiter brought us the same soup for each that had nothing to do with what we asked for. He tried to convience us that they were two different soups although they had the same colour and they look like exactly the same.. Then of course, we found out that they were the same. Then the cook came, and told us in a very rude way that they are both parsley soup without any apologize or any further explanation… We couldn’t beleive how the staff could treat the clients like idiots in this way… I have never seen such an unprofessional staff.. When you go to a restourant, not only you pay for the food, but also you pay for the service…So I don’t think that I would turn back to this restaurant again.
Mar 26, 2012
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Ayca,
Agreed, the service here does not match the level of cooking. We too have noticed that what we order downstairs does not always make it upstairs as we’d planned. But we have never had any nasty encounters with the staff. We do find the pushy sales technique of the people taking our order a bit, well, pushy. We hope they’ll tighten it all up a bit with time.
Mar 29, 2012
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They are pushy indeed. And the staff keep talking about how great their food and restaurant are. Last time because they praised a certain vegetable casserole which was made with the “delicious (!)” herbs of Kaz mountain (by the way they have no idea about the names of the herbs), cheese and egg, we ordered the vegetable casserole. It was the worst thing I have ever eaten. But I know I will go back again for their lahmacun and pide and especially for katikli ekmek even though I know that I will be annoyed by their conceit. Sad, but true.
Mar 29, 2012
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nice, cozy place… I ate there more than a couple of times, brought many friends cause I liked the place itself (though I have to say upstairs gets very very hot and stuffy and unpleasant to sit).
But I found the soups lame, the Antakya kebap too garlicy to the extent that I couldn’t taste anything but garlic, and kuru fasulye far below average.
But I have to give them credit for their great pide and lahmacun.
I ordered food once for delivery for a group of 20 people as a side dish for a special kind of meal; the order arrived far too late after we were already done with the main dish. I was very disappointed.
Then a couple of weeks later, I placed an order for a pide for take out, and was told to come pick it up 15 minutes later, which I did, only to find out that they “simply forgot to proceed with my order”. So there was no pide for me. I was not offered an apology or any sort of nicety.
I am never going back there again.
Apr 4, 2012
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The Place is very very nice (its my second home in istanbul)… I found my self going there almost 4 times a week… for breakfast (this beetroot salad on sundays is amazing.. and the eggs… and the cheese …) for lunch, for dinner ( i had shark there one time, not to mention the octapus and the lahmacun: vejeterian= my favorite…!!!) .. Today i discover that they do sandwiches in the morning …
not all of my friends like the place (the ones coming from Tukrey). The Turks find it tooooo messy….and the customer service too bossy.. but ofcourse the most of them are not used to that kind of places.. (and they find pushy every waiter in every restaurant that suggests something). Is like an American Dinner meeting a Bistro from Berlin and a 5* Italian restaurant all of them in Istanbul…
I talked with the owner one day (Dilara) and she explained me that their plan was to keep the upper floors as an office..not to serve any food… wasn’t suppose to be a restaurant.. but a take away place..and ofcourse a bakery… however i think there many people who LOVE the place.. and thats why its impossible to find a chair sunday mornings and every afternoon…
I’m a tourist guide and i never had a bad feedback from any costumer (just funny stories)…
But i have to ALERT you people.. when you go there do not expect 4* service… there is no waiter … just a runner moves from the ground floor to the top floor bringing your food and cleaning your table..
I havent tried their delivery service yet.. cause im scared… in the evenings the ground floor is sooo busy with orders.. and the telephones dont stop ringing…so i prefer not to have a bad experience…
NOTE: you order in the entrance (is like starbucks!!) .. you go upstairs… and as megan says: whenever you see a teddy bear you mind your head… (u ll understand when u ll be there).. you find a place to sit… you choose your forks and knives (like a british pub)… and you wait…. then the food arrives… you eat and then you go (cause probably someone is waiting to sit in your place)… you pay at the exit.. (after you buy some baked goodies ..
)
hope you enjoy it guys as i do the past 2 months im in Istanbul…
Jun 18, 2012
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Good pide, bad lahmacun. Lahmacun must walk the line between moist topping and flaky/crispy crust — mine at Datli Maya was really dry and I couldn’t finish it. Having eaten at Fistik Kebap and Halil means any new lahmacun faces stiff competition, but this wasn’t even edible. For specificity’s sake, I ordered the goat cheese and chili paste. My companion ordered the “Mardin” lahmacun and it was better (edible) but not great. Service? We had to ask for plates, and were given no glasses for our ayran.
Generally I think the place is cute, has good ideas, but needs to work on the execution.