The black tables – the ones in front of the veteran Fazil Bey Kahvesi – used to be white until they were replaced when a gaggle of upstart neighboring cafes put out their own white tables, presumably hoping to siphon off some of Fazil Bey’s business. Next door is Yavuz Bey and next to that Hurrem Efendi and just across the street Niyazi Bey, all serving Turkish coffee and seating customers at the same white marble tables. Buyrun!

In Istanbul, fads burn white hot and competition can be comically ruthless. Be it coffee or mojitos, you’ll see butcher shops, bookstores and pharmacies retrofitted overnight to capitalize on the latest popular trend. We even know one (now former) barber, Suleyman, who recently hung up his shears, donned a fez and turned his barbershop into place to squeeze and sell fruit juice.

We’re all for free enterprise and open competition, but the mushrooming of cafes on Fazil Bey’s street sets up a dangerous trap that many of us could fall into. Turkish coffee is Turkish coffee and the tables are all natural stone anyway, a visitor to this stretch of Kadikoy might think, so what could be the big difference?

There’s only one way to find out. Patiently wait for one of those black-topped tables to open and order yourself an orta sekerli (medium sweet) and you will experience what it means to sip a truly superior coffee. At Fazil Bey, they roast their own Brazilian beans to a preferred (dark) color on the premises and grind them throughout the day into a fine powder, as Turkish coffee requires. Before even taking down the copper cezve to make a cup of coffee, Fazil Bey already has a leg up on most of the competition, who buy their coffee pre-ground from distributors.

Freshness is a big factor but the in-house roasting is a tradition that goes back to the shop’s foundation in the 1920’s. According to Murat Celik, Fazil Bey’s roaster of thirty years, respect for this shop’s tradition is an important ingredient in a good cup. “Around here, you’ve got taxi drivers and kokorec vendors who quit that job and start making coffee,” he scoffed. “This is our grandfather’s profession.”

At Fazil Bey we do believe the coffee is superior, but it’s the ritualistic experience here that we really enjoy. The tiny shop itself is like a sanctuary, with every nook and cranny filled with something precious and coffee-related. The intoxicating smell of fresh ground coffee wafts around the room like incense. Every detail of the service – the small metal service trays, the porcelain coffee cups with the Fazil Bey logo, small glasses of water and the square of lokum served alongside – adds up to one powerful cup of coffee. Sipping a coffee here, you can feel their respect for the coffee-making tradition and the generations that upheld it in this shop. That’s something that can’t be imitated with furniture.

Address: Serasker Caddesi 1A, Kadikoy
Telephone: +902164502870

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

We’re especially fond of the islands in springtime, when their Judas, Mimosa and wild plum trees are starting to bloom and a walk along one of their tranquil trails serves as the perfect cure for the lingering effects of the Istanbul winter blues. Of course, a good meal is essential any time of the year and we’ve been lucky enough to find a few spots on the islands that are worthy destinations in and of themselves. For those planning a visit to the Princes’ Islands, some suggestions below:

Burgazada – Kalpazankaya Restaurant
Burgazada is the smallest and least visited of the Princes’ Islands. The island has few easily accessible beaches and picnic spots, but what it does have is a laid back atmosphere and several charming waterfront restaurants and cafes in the harbor. Better yet, Burgaz is home to Kalpazankaya Restaurant, an out-of-the-way, open-air meyhane on the island’s backside that will quickly help you forget about the crowded mass of humanity left behind on the ferry.

Getting to Kalpazankaya is easy: take the road that leads to the right when leaving the ferry terminal and continue walking along that road for about 30 minutes until it comes to an end. In front of you, sitting in splendid isolation on a hillside overlooking the blue waters of the Marmara Sea and a small pebble beach below, is the restaurant, a collection of vine-shaded terraces with rickety wooden tables and chairs…. (Click here to read the rest of the review)

Heybeliada – Heyamola Ada Lokantasi
The new-offshore-kid-in-town, Heyamola Ada Lokanatasi, is a perfect storm of inspired food, chill ambiance, and small-label Turkish wines, all at ridiculously low prices. Heyamola is reason in and of itself to plan a day trip to the Prince’s Islands, and if you are already organizing your island adventure, this place is a compelling argument for ditching the ferry at Heybeli Island, often overlooked in favor of the more popular Buyukada….(Click here to read the rest of the review)

Buyukada – Club Mavi
Considering you’re on an island, you probably want to eat somewhere with a view of the sea. Most visitors to Buyukada end up getting lured to the row of busy fish restaurants found just beside Buyukada’s ferry terminal. All have seaside terraces with a view of Istanbul’s rapidly developing Asian shore (and of the occasional piece of urban flotsam and jetsam that drifts by) and similar, predictable menus with decently made, but uninspiring food.

A more pleasant (but not cheap) island experience, though, can be had by hailing one of Buyukada’s numerous horse carriages and asking the driver to take you to Club Mavi, a restaurant and hotel located inside a rambling old house on the island’s undeveloped backside…. (Click here to read the rest of this review)

Buyukada – SofrAda
One of the questions that we frequently ask ourselves during visits to Buyukada is just where do the locals eat? The seaside fish restaurants are too pricey, while even the “budget” places away from the sea are clearly aimed at the tourist trade.

We recently found the answer to our question in the form of SofrAda Restoran, a homey version of an esnaf lokanta, located on a small side street near the aromatic lot where the horse carriages are parked while their drivers wait for rides….(Click here to read the rest of the review)

On a dark and deserted street in January covered in swirls and swirls of snow, a bright pool of light  shines from a ground-level window. You open the door and are wrapped the scents of hot espresso and fresh basil, of parmesan cheese and spicy puttanesca sauce bubbling in a pan. A woman calls a hearty ‘Welcome!’ and you pass into the friendliest Italian bistro this side of Sicily.

Semolina is an enticing new addition to the culinary landscape in the Asian side’s Kadıköy neighborhood, which is working hard to pull in Istanbul’s eaters. Within the last year, the area has witnessed the opening of a Cuban restaurant, a German sausage shop, an Iranian café and a Lebanese fast food joint. (Sadly, the Lebanese place folded in months—nobody but foreigners came to feast on the wonderful falafels and babaganoush, and so now it’s been transformed into a lackluster ciğer venue on a street already swarming with them. The sausage shop, unfortunately, is also no longer in operation.)

The restaurant sets things off with a basket of bread served with a side sauce of basil, olives, and olive oil. The basil leaves are freshly crushed and full of flavor—bought just that afternoon from Kadıköy’s nearby market. It is brought as soon as we sit down by our charismatic waiter, Fevzi, the co-owner and husband of chef Hulya.

‘Our pastas are all handmade,’ he explains, ‘by two Italian brothers who own a small company here in Istanbul.’ And while the entrées are limited to pastas, these are not the guesses of some clueless someone hoping to make bank off of Italian cuisine’s popularity, but the real deal. The fettuccine is flat and thick, cooked al dente, and the carbonara sauce made with egg yolk and fresh, grated parmesan cheese.  Chef Hulya knows what’s what. I order the fettuccine alla puttanesca. Hulya uses real anchovies in the sauce, with capers and red peppers to give it a little kick. ‘Tonight I went with cherry tomatoes,’ she explains. ‘Regular tomato season is long gone, and the cherries pack a lot more flavor.’ Hulya’s food is thoughtful—the same consideration goes into every dish she makes. For breakfast, for instance, they offer pancakes and she insists that the syrup be pure maple, brought direct from Canada. And I must gush about the mushrooms in the mushroom and chicken fettuccine—these fungi did not slide oozily out of a can. They were crisp and meaty, and like the basil, fresh from the market.

‘My wife puts love into this place,’ Fevzi says. ‘For years she worked at a bank—and hated it. So we made a decision. We pooled all the money we got at our wedding and put her through the Academy of Culinary Arts—she had always been a good cook. After she graduated, it was difficult to find a job so we decided to open our own place specializing in Mediterranean cuisine, her favorite.” (In addition to Italian, Semolina sports a few French and Greek dishes as well.)

Hulya’s enthusiasm is palpable in all the little details that make dining here such a pleasure. This place is well crafted—from the little dishes of grated Romano that come with every meal to the fresh ground pepper from the pepper mills, from the soft sofa and chairs perfect for an after-dinner espresso, to the warm wine-red of the walls.

We top off dinner with a chocolate soufflé—again, the genuine article. Crowned with a crisp crust, the inside is light and warm and gooey—the ideal antidote to Istanbul’s coldest winter in thirty years.

Don’t think I haven’t noticed the preponderance of words like ‘fresh’, ‘genuine’, and ‘real’ in this article, and I know what you’re thinking. Imports! Expensive!Yikes! Yet despite the glut of authenticity, there is none of the usual Istanbul price-gouging for foreign fare.  Pastas range from 12 to 17 lira with most things hovering around 14, and the portions are generous.

With wonderful salads, bruschetta, and mezes, Semolina’s single culinary lack is alcohol, specifically wine—they don’t yet have a license and it may prove difficult to get under the increasingly draconian laws.  The location is also a bit of a disadvantage. The street is rather quiet, although it also hosts the excellent Rengahenk, so it may have a bright future if both these restaurants can stick it out.  As it stands, follow Kadıköy’s famed Bar Street to the end, cross the road past the bakery and then turn right at the tattoo parlor. Or else come up Moda Caddesi and hang a left past the Tek Bufe.

Buon Appetito!

Address: Ressam Şeref Akdik Sokak, No. 7, A Caferağa Mahellesi, Moda, Kadıköy
Telephone: (216) 330-8606

(photo by Jeff Gibbs)

(Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by “Meliz,” an intrepid explorer of Istanbul’s culinary backstreets and a frequent contributor to these pages who would like to keep her anonymity.)

It all started with Laz boregi.

It was not just any Laz boregi that showed up at the dinner party that evening, but perfect Laz Boregi—layers of yufka (phyllo) buttery and moist, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, in a symbiotic balance with the custard, which was neither too sweet, nor too eggy; neither too runny, nor too stiff. Goldilocks would be proud. Juuuust right. And, it turns out, this stuff is addictive.

So that got me on the ferry and up the hill to Moda Caddesi in Kadikoy, on a pilgrimage to the source. And that is where I really got myself into trouble.

Bizim Ev is a storefront on one of the arcaded stretches of Moda Caddesi, tucked in between discount stores, karate studios, the best butcher in town, and five million coiffeurs. Glowing and cozy, the place welcomes you with an immediate barrage of choices. And therein lies the problem. How to choose just one thing? Turns out, I am incapable of this.

So. In addition to the Laz boregi mentioned already, they do an amazing savory borek stuffed with roasted eggplant (kozlenmis patlican muska boregi), and a daily selection of other savory boreks. Again, perfect yufka, perfect fillings, perfect borek. My greatest weakness at Bizim Ev, though, is an item best described as When Veggie Quiche Met Ev Pogaca. A baked batter that falls somewhere on the eggier side of biscuit holds together a cornucopia of vegetables (usually potato, red pepper, onion, zucchini) laced generously with fresh dill. Irresistible.  And there is still so much more to choose from: cookies, cakes (the sour cherry cake, ooooh the sour cherry cake), baklava…and then there are the zeytinyagli dishes. Bizim Ev manages to rock the baked goods AND to roll out an impressive variety of cold appetizer classics, all made daily from the best ingredients, and all delicious enough to impress even the most stubborn zeytinyagli snob.

Although Bizim Ev is primarily a take-away type of operation, they do have a few tables, inside and out. If I am in a social and sharing mood, I will sometimes pick up some goodies to bring with me when meeting up with friends at the nearby (and lovely) Moda Tea Gardens – those guys never raise a fuss over BYO snacks.

I do not joke when I say that I am incapable of picking just one thing, but I suspect I am not the only one, as owners Nezahat Hanim and Ali Bey never bat an eye when I look shifty, clutch at my pearls, and let out the clarion call of a closeted addict: ‘oh, and maybe just a few of those, too…’ So go ahead, do not be shy, try it all. Everything at Bizim Ev is outstanding. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Address: Moda Caddesi 95/A, Moda 
Telephone: +90-216-336-1681

Just walk on by to nearby Ciya, your instinct might tell you. But that would be a grave miscalculation. Started in 1919 by Fehmi bey, a refugee from Greece, this restaurant has been run by his descendants for three generations, preserving the founder’s recipes. Serving mainstream favorites and hard-to-find specialties, this is a place steeped in the history and the cuisine of Istanbul. It may look like a typical esnaf lokantasi, if a wacky one, but there is much stored in the culinary memory bank of this place.

There are two ways to approach the imposing steam table here. Either go with the recognizable classics such as kuzu tandir, lamb baked in a brick oven, and the Turkish spin on meatloaf, Dalyan kofte. Or you can take the route less traveled, the offal way, as we did on one recent lunch that started with a rich and garlicky bowl of trotter soup. Prescribed locally as a hangover cure, we found this soup equally soothing if you’re stone cold sober. Moving through the courses, rather than the same old buttery rice with a drizzle of baked beans overtop, we went with the rapturous icli pilav, one of Turkey’s most artful, and delicious, rice dishes. At Fehmi it was loaded down with currants and laced with little pieces of liver.

Back at the steam table to select our main course, the usta went over the options again for us, his voice muffled by a surgical mask. What was that he said? Ciger sarma? Stuffed liver? While our intellect wrestled with how a liver would be stuffed and with what, our stomach took over and said, “evet.” Giddy with excitement over the possibility of finding a new favorite dish – anything stuffed with liver or liver stuffed with anything is a really promising start – we returned to the table followed by a waiter in bow tie and vest carrying our trophy dish.

What was on our plate was lightly browned over the top, with an egg sauce, we later learned. The underside was like drenched bread becoming one with the inside. It gave way easily to the fork, releasing what looked like icli pilav and cubed liver into the thin pink juice on the plate. But the big difference here is the casing of this sarma, kuzu gomlek, which translates to “the sheep’s shirt.” This is the caul fat, a thin webby membrane that protects the internal organs of a milk-fed lamb. In Fehmi usta’s day, this gomlek would come along once a year so it was a somewhat precious article and ciger sarma was a seasonal dish, traditionally.

Today, kuzu ciger sarma is on the menu everyday at Fehmi, and, as far as we can tell, it is the holy grail of the menu. As we sopped up the juice in our plate after devouring the rich sarma, swearing that the Turks had figured out how to make liver tastier than the French with their foie gras (sorry, we get a little carried away sometimes), the manager and son of Fehmi came over to see how we liked the dish. We told him that we thought we’d found our new favorite liver preparation and thanked him for it.

Taking a second look at the place on the way out, we made mental note of the coordinates. Yanyali Fehmi is not a replacement for the Kadikoy magic of Ciya, but it is an excellent supplement.

Address: Yaglikci Ismail Sok. 1, Kadikoy
Telephone: +90 216 336 3333
Web: fehmilokantasi.com
Hours: 9am-10pm

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: Over here at Istanbul Eats, we like to think of ourselves as kofte savants. While to the untrained eye kofte may look like nothing more than a grilled meatball, we like to discern differences in taste, texture and consistency in the different styles of this ubiquitous Turkish dish. Like coffee, tea and wine, we would argue that the concept of terroir be applied to kofte and its different regional interpretations. With that in mind, we invite to join us this week for an exploration of the many faces of kofte, with a look at five favorite spots in Istanbul.)

Köfte comes in many forms each with its own title – lastik köfte, inegol köfte, ev köfte and, like the ones at Recep Usta, tükrük köfte. The term tükrük, meaning saliva, comes from a slightly stomach churning popular urban legend that the street cart köfte vendors outside of Besiktas stadium spit on their hands before shaping their meatballs. All the same, köfte that resembles those street meatballs in size and shape – spit or no spit – are categorized as tükrük köfte, as do the fantastic kofte at Recep Usta….(click here for the full review)

In this picture, anything but fresh grilled fish would seem incongruous. But hop off the boat in Cengelkoy, for example, and you’ll find a very different culinary world in the backstreets beyond the dock. Among other things, you’ll find köfte. In fact, people in Cengelkoy seem to have been eating kofte, quite happily, at Recep Usta kofte since the 1970’s.

Köfte comes in many forms each with its own title – lastik köfte, inegol köfte, ev köfte and, like the one at Recep Usta, tükrük köfte. The term tukruk, meaning saliva, comes from a slightly stomach churning popular urban legend that the street cart köfte vendors outside of Besiktas stadium spit on their hands before shaping their meatballs. All the same, köfte that resembles those street meatballs in size and shape – spit or no spit – are categorized as tükrük köfte, as do the kofte at Recep Usta.

We happen to love eating tükrük köfte sandwiches outside of the stadium. It’s about the only part of a Besiktas soccer match that we do enjoy. So it was pleasantly surprising to see our old game day meal on a plate alongside a pile of onions and a dollop of red pepper sauce. But the resemblance stopped there. If Besiktas stadium kofte is the canned tuna fish of meatballs, then Recep usta is serving sushi-grade.

On the way out, we asked Yavuz bey, son of the founder Recep usta, how he’d categorize his excellent meatballs. “Recep usta köftesi,” he said, then and there, creating a new category of meatball (and cleverly avoiding any reference to bodily fluids). Smart move.

Address: Cakali Sok. 4, Cengelkoy
Telephone: (216) 321-4977

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: Over here at Istanbul Eats, we like to think of ourselves as kofte savants. While to the untrained eye kofte may look like nothing more than a grilled meatball, we like to discern differences in taste, texture and consistency in the different styles of this ubiquitous Turkish dish. Like coffee, tea and wine, we would argue that the concept of terroir be applied to kofte and its different regional interpretations. With that in mind, we invite to join us this week for an exploration of the many faces of kofte, with a look at five favorite spots in Istanbul.)

Students of Istanbul street food will recognize the “islama” modifier on this kofte and understand its relation with the oh-so-edible “islak” hamburger in Taksim Square. It is a fellowship of drenched bread. But while the wet burger is drenched in secret sauce and sent to steam in the burger hamam, islama kofte’s wide slices of village bread are dunked in kemik suyu, or, homemade beef stock, and grilled alongside the meatballs.

We asked Osman usta, who has worked the grill at AKO Adapazari Islama Kofte for 39 years, what the secret is. He replied, “No secrets. You just dunk [the bread] and grill it.”

The “and grill it” part of Osman’s instructions, we think, is the key to this dish though….(Click here to see the full review)

We asked Osman usta, who has worked the grill at AKO Adapazari Islama Kofte for 39 years, what the secret is. He replied, “No secrets. You just dunk [the bread] and grill it.”

The “and grill it” part of Osman’s instructions, we think, is the key to this dish though. Three slices of toasted, sopping bread covered nearly a dozen bite-size kofte. The bread achieved a real crunch and melt-in-your-mouth sop that we’ve only experienced in a good French toast. At other kofte places, we’ll never look at bread — sitting there undunked and untoasted — alongside kofte the same way.

Though the bread represents the luxury option package of the dish, distinguishing it from more common models, checking under the hood of this kofte reveals a meatball firing on all cylinders. Juicy and handmade, grilled perfectly over a charcoal fire, these meatballs need not hide under any bread. “Forget the bread, I’d come back for the kofte alone,” said someone at the table. Which side of this dish — the islama bread or the kofte — plays the lead seems a subject for debate, only to be resolved by another visit to this fine spot.

Address: Yasa Caddesi 11, Kadikoy (inside the bazaar area)
Telephone: (216) 338-7815
Web: adapazariislamakofte.com

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: This week we are celebrating the white bean, that humble legume that reaches levels of incredible complexity and flavor when in the hands of Turkish cooks. Until visiting some of Istanbul’s shrines to the baked bean, we generally regarded the dish as something eaten out of a can beside railroad tracks. But Turkey takes this humble food (known as “kuru fasulye”) seriously; that means chefs in tall toques carefully ladling out golden beans in a rich red gravy onto monogrammed flatware, served by waiters wearing bowties and vests. Even in the least formal of Istanbul’s beaneries, the guy manning the pot has the air of a high priest knowing that his incantations alone conjure something unusually delicious out of a simple bean. This is no hobo fare. This week, to celebrate the bean, we are counting down our five favorite place in Istanbul to get “kuru fasulye.”)

At Çomlek you can’t miss the huge red clay cauldron sitting behind the counter. The fellow with the big ladle says it’s the pot that makes these beans better than the rest. Cooking vessel aside, a serving of these beans also has the highest meat count of any place we’ve visited in Istanbul. Whereas most beans might have a shred or at best a few nuggets of tender roasted beef in there for flavor, Çomlek’s are crowned by generous helping of meat. In such a rich dish the meat offsets the cloying beans satisfyingly, leaving the meek still able to walk away and the strong-willed able order up another half portion. The restaurant, located on the wooded slopes above Uskudar on the Asian side, is a bit out of the way. But for us, these are beans at their best and worth the trip.

Address: Turistik Cad. 28, Çamlica
Telephone: 216-316-2953
Web: www.comlek.com.tr