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 Datli 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 guvec (i.e. dishes, from stews to white beans, slow cooked in a clay pot), a spinach and spicy Antakya cheese borek 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 cay 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 kebab 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.

Datli 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 Firuzaga Mosque)
Telephone: +902122929057
Web: www.datlimaya.com
Open everyday 8am-midnight

(photo by Monique Jaques)

This was supposed to be a quick run down to the Karakoy hardware market for a faucet and some sandpaper, but our culinary backstreets antenna, always up, automatically changed the the afternoon’s priorities. So we followed the commotion to a tiny restaurant called Urfa Şark Sofrasi and pulled up a stool outside of this humble kebab shop.

The owner, Saim bey, convinced us to start with kurufasuliye, which was kept warm in a charred clay pot at the front. More famous in the Turkish Northeast and Central Anatolian regions, these beans were done in the Black Sea style with meat and plenty of butter, but also delivering a little extra kick of heat, that we attributed to the place’s link to Urfa, home of the diabolical isot, an oily, almost black dried and crushed red pepper.

Faced with the difficult task of choosing between a list of kebab, we ordered a mixed grill platter that included kanat (chicken wings), patlicanli kebab (minced lamb sheesh interrupted by thick slices of eggplant), and a kebab called haşhaş (pronounced, “hash hash”), which was as intoxicating as the name indicates. The meat was buried under mounds of fresh bread slathered with a spicy rub, rolls of soft lavash and spicy green peppers and tomatoes hot off of the grill. Working our way through the platter we kept seeking out chunks of the particularly crumbly, crispy yet soft sheesh. Finding the last piece hiding under a triangle of lavash, we asked Saim bey what we were eating.

“That’s hashas kebabi, knife-cut beef with lamb fat, super!” he said.

Super indeed, we agreed – even bleat-worthy.

Address: Persembe Pazari Caddesi, Keresteci fazil sokak 4, Karakoy
Telephone: +902122496963

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

The medieval Ottoman travel writer, Evliya Celebi, wrote of Beyoglu streets filled with humble little stew and dolma restaurants, bustling at lunchtime with merchants getting a fill. He counted more than five hundred of them. Surveying today’s culinary landscape for its Ottoman roots, the eyes fall directly on the esnaf lokantasi, or tradesmen’s restaurants, that now serve the working man much as they have for centuries. If Evliya Celebi were walking the streets of Istanbul today, hungry, we are sure he’d feel perfectly at home at Tunclar Lokantasi on Elmadag Caddesi.  

Like most esnaf lokantasi in the area, Tunclar is a packed with regulars during lunch rush. The single waiter hustles food out from the open kitchen at the back and the boss mans the register and a bank of telephones at the front. Specials change daily, from stuffed zucchini under a blanket of thick yogurt (kabak dolmasi) to an excellent moussaka, as well as white beans over rice and stuffed cabbage leaves – this is unfiltered home food. At Tunclar the bread is also notable – whole-wheat loaves studded with sunflower seeds. From the grill we had chicken thighs with fresh cut French fries and chased the whole meal down with a house specialty, kabak tatlisi, or stewed pumpkin sprinkled with crushed walnuts.

The post-meal discussion turned to the five hundred or so proto-esnaf lokantasi that Celebi visited back in the 16^th century. How many had we been to in Beyoglu alone and how many had we missed? Then we caught a glimpse of the exhausted waiter in a daze of his own. The rear windows by the kitchen are covered in a trompe-l’oeil sticker of a Hawaiian beach scene – a silhouette of a sunbathing hardbody backlit by the afternoon sun, palm trees leaning down to kiss a crystal blue sea. There’s something that surely hasn’t changed since Ottoman times: a waiter’s dream of vacation.

Address: Elmadag Cad. 9, Elmadag
Telephone: +902122410295

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

After the initial surprise of stumbling on this little meatball shack, we quickly took a seat outside and settled into the rhythm of the hardware market into which it is tucked. Across the street from Cemal’s stands another tiny shop that sells nothing but black rubber washers, from the gauge of a car wheel down to that of a pencil. As we got ready to eat, a man who had been going shop to shop with a thick bolt in his hand asking where he might find more arrived at the restaurant. Hakki bey pointed down the street and slapped his forearm indicating a right turn ahead and watched the man disappear behind a colorful pile of rope coiled up outside of a shop that looked to be perfectly coated in axle grease. This is the stage upon which a typical lunch in the Persembe Pazari plays out.

Any corner tea stand in this market delivers such vistas, but Kofteci Cemal, of course, also has meatballs. Hakki bey hand pats them into loose nuggets, roughly the size and shape of the famous spoonmaker’s diamond in Topkapi Palace. These kofte are a precious commodity around lunchtime, when hungry shopkeepers come over for an order or call Hakki on his phone by the grill. Shot through with parsley and spiced with black pepper, these are a common form of kofte, but fresh off of the grill we found them uncommonly soft and as juicy as kofte can be.

Though lacking the secret sauce that got us hooked on Kofteci Huseyin’s kofte or an outstanding piyaz ala Kofteci Arnavut, Kofteci Cemal is still a destination meatball by our count. The meatballs are well above average, but we see them as an excuse to gain access to Hakki bey and his regulars who seem to have stepped right out of the black and white photos of Ara Guler. And like the long-gone gritty society depicted in those photos, there are rumors that this hardware market may be lost to another great urban transformation, the Golden Horn Marina project. We like to think that this little meatball shop would survive such a radical transformation, but without his regulars – men who wear cover-alls, not top-siders – Hakki is not likely to carry on. But, at least for now, the writing on the wall still says “kofteci”.

Address: Yemenciler Sokak 16, Persembe Pazari, Karakoy

(photo by Ansel Mullins) 

Tarlabasi

In almost a decade of living in or near this neighborhood we’ve come to appreciate its blemished beauty, but, as much as we’ve tried, never managed to find a restaurant worth mentioning.

Then came a tip from a reader promising great pide just off of Omer Hayyam Caddesi on the Tarlabasi market street, Kurdela Sokak. As most of our business on this street falls on Sundays, when the street is filled with fresh fruit and vegetable stands, we’ve never noticed the little sign reading “Etli Pide Salonu” with a black Camel logo. Oz Develi has been obstructed by the Sunday market here for 18 years with Ahmet “Five Fingers” Besparmak working the oven, six days a week. Here they serve a very particular style of pide made in Besparmak’s hometown of Develi, near Kayseri. In this tiny pide shop, only a few tables and chairs stand between the front door and the oven. On the walls are pictures of Ahmet in Develi in the 1970’s, glossy posters of Develi pide, and a memorial poster to the “Martyrs of Develi”, soldiers from his hometown killed in battle. In case, you missed it on the way in, the name, Oz Develi, means “pure” or “authentic” Develi. That’s hometown pride.

Develi pide is a type of Kayseri pide or, to use a less subtle name, etli ekmek, “meaty bread.”  If the classic Black Sea style of pide is canoe-shaped than this is more of a flat and wide barge. True to its name etli ekmek is not going to be topped with cheese or slathered in butter, as it is in the Black Sea. This is a stark production; the dough is adorned with knife-cut beef, diced tomatoes and peppers only. It is then fired in a traditional brick oven that occupies the back half of the room.

The resulting pide is quite light and crispy. We tasted the sweetness of ripe tomatoes as the peppers gave a quick kick cushioned by the lean and lightly seasoned beef. The loose arrangement of ingredients, devoid of any grease or binding agent, like cheese, allowed each voice of this pide choir to sing.

Across bustling Tarlabasi boulevard, in the back of the Beyoglu fish market, “famous” and “historic” pide joints line the street serving the same soggy old fare. We’ll gladly stick to our local option, if not to spend a little more time in the Tarlabasi backstreets, but because, pide at Oz Develi is simply the real thing.

Address: Kurdela Sokak 6A, Beyoglu
Telephone: +902122503438

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

Since the indoor smoking ban went into effect, outdoor seating has become even more prized on this street, a hot destination for revelry. While most businesses held permits for their outdoor seating area, violations of the space were clearly rampant. Over the past year, tables seemed to multiply like mushrooms overnight until finally, pedestrians were forced to pass in a single file line between the gauntlet of tables filled with diners, drinkers and smokers.

But this afternoon, police and municipal inspectors swept through, confiscating outdoor furniture and ordering the demolition of decks built outside of restaurants. A pile of rubble, previously a deck, stood just downhill from the stylish House Café, while across the street waiters worked frantically with crowbars to remove a particularly permanent looking structure.

Pushcart vendor Murat said, “This affects all of us. Who am I going to sell pogaca to if no one is outside? How can I live if I can’t make money? They’ve just killed Asmalimescit.”

But a waiter from Perentez café said, “Think about this, if there’s a fire and the trucks can’t get through the street. In two hours how many lives will be lost?” Located just off of Sofyali Sokak, Perentez, for now, remains one of the few bars in the area with outdoor seating.

According to a report in the daily Radikal, the Beyoglu municipality is responding to citizens’ complaints of the illegal blockage of streets and sidewalks. But today, on Sofyali Sokak where business owners, loyal customers and others stood in knots discussing the sweep. The murmur going through the crowd was “Tayyip,” as in Recep Tayyip Erdogan, indicating the Prime Minister as the hand behind the lightning brigades. According to one version of the rumor, the PM was incensed after his motorcade was unable one recent night to get through Beyoglu’s people-crowded narrow streets because of all the outdoor seating and gave the order for what could be dubbed Operation Table Clearing.

According to Bade, the owner of the ever-popular bar and café Badehane, the other night at around 11pm an ominous handwritten note was delivered saying, “Your use of the sidewalk has been cancelled.” Today Bade didn’t put any tables outside and doesn’t know how her business will survive. “We make all of our money in the summer thanks to our outdoor seating that I paid the Municipality for in advance. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pay my rent. But I’m hopeful that we’ll find a solution.”

Around the corner on Asmali Mescit Caddesi, which was cleared out over the weekend, a shoeshine man sat in front of his large brass box as a deliveryman with a handtruck urged him to move out of the way. The shoeshine man shook his head and took another bite out of his sandwich, for now the last man in Asmalimescit still sitting outside.

Step out of the dingy stairwell of the Rumeli Han and into Govinda’s Vejeteryan Evi and you will feel as if you’ve crossed a cosmic divide. The warm and cozy room has café tables, pillowed floor seating, walls covered with a friendly looking blue deity and gentle chants that play over the sound system. The color palette at this Indian vegetarian restaurant is dominated by orange and yellow, as if the high exposed brick walls and handsome old wooden doors were painted with vindaloo sauce and saffron. We’ve written before about the parallel universe that exists in the Taksim area’s Rumeli Han – oddball shops, anarchist bars – and Govinda’s, which is run by members of the Hare Krishna movement, fits right in. But beyond the novelty of the place there are genuine good intentions and a menu that offers some variety to the offerings of the typical Beyoglu esnaf restaurant.

“The thali system says the body should get 5 flavors to create a peaceful, balanced mental and physical state,” said Balarama, founder of Govinda and of the next-door Indian Cultural Center, who greeted us upon arrival with a smile and a slight bow, his hands pressed together.

Thali, the ubiquitous Indian lunch, is a sort of subcontinental value meal that includes four or five small bowls of food. One recent day, the thali at Govinda’s consisted of an excellent stewed eggplant with tomatoes and onions, zucchini soup, rice cooked with carrots and crowned with a little pakora, a green salad and little cookies flecked with raisins. In the eggplant dish and zucchini soup we felt the hint Indian spicing without being overwhelmed, as if the cook were rationing from a dwindling stash of garam masala. Balarama told us the cook didn’t favor heavily spiced food, but, upon request, she could be convinced otherwise. We’ll return with that in mind.

Don’t go to Govinda’s expecting an encyclopedic menu of Indian cuisine. The daily thali menu is all they serve, but the food is always fresh and accomplishes much in five flavors. This is a humble, honest operation that is vegetarian primarily and Indian incidentally. At only 9 TL for the thali menu, the only thing out of balance is all that leftover lunch money jingling around in your pocket.

Address: Istiklal Caddesi, Rumeli Han C Block, 1^st Floor
Telephone: (212) 252-7719
Web: www.govindasistanbul.com
Hours: 12pm-10pm (takeout and delivery available)

(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.)

This classic Beyoglu spot serves what we refer to as “the Cadillac of Meatballs” — hands down some of the finest kofte in town. Click here to get the full review.

Beyoglu officials, in their defense, have stated that it was simply a matter of forcing bar owners to replace old and worn-out furniture. We decided to check things out for ourselves and headed down to bustling Mis Sokak, home to numerous bars and cafes, to see what the barkeeps had to say. According to Derya of Nero Cafe on Mis Sokak, the municipal officers have been spreading the word for a while that two-person seats are a “visual nuisance.” So Nero had their benches cut into two pieces to dodge the wrath of the dreaded zabita. The owners of Bodega, across the street from Nero, were less lucky. They had their loveseats confiscated and damaged in the process.

“How can our seats be considered a visual nuisance? Are the Chinese stones that pave the street not a visual nuisance? How about that ugly new shopping mall on Istiklal?” Nero’s Muhamad Simsek of Cafe Nero told us.

“Banning these seats is the same philosophy as internet censorship,” he said, referring to the recent controversy over the Turkish government’s plan to create a mandatory filtering service for internet users. ”These two-person seats have a history of, like, 1000 years. And people have always wanted to sit next to each other.”

Unlike the whole loveseat story, that, at least, was something nobody could argue with.

(Editor’s Note: In honor of the May Day workers’ holiday, we are rerunning last year’s post that takes a look at the dining possibilities at two union halls, Istanbul style. Happy May 1!)

Gazeteciler Lokali-Beyoglu: The Write Stuff
Journalists in Turkey are notoriously overworked and underpaid (at least that’s what Turkish journalists will tell you). The part of the story they tend to leave out is the free reign they enjoy over Istanbul’s Journalists’ Union lokal, a classic little dining room and clubhouse with an Ottoman-era fireplace, dark wood wainscoting and a ritzy address right on Istiklal Caddesi. This faded elegance, almost entirely lost in Istanbul, sets the stage for a raucous affair that sometimes resembles dinner and at other times a gypsy wedding celebration. On the weekends, journalists and those-in-the-know pack this place for a long meal accompanied by live music.

The set menu includes a bounty of seasonal cold meze, including artichokes stewed in olive oil, pickled beets and smoked eggplant puree. From the hot starters we recommend the sarma, chard leaves stuffed with ground beef and drizzled with garlicky yogurt.  A fresh green salad leads up to the main course crescendo of meat or fish – take your pick, they are both good.

The food is reliably good and the location is excellent, but we think it’s the price of this all you can eat and drink deal that appeals to the hard luck hack. At 60 Lira, it’s a night out even a Turkish journalist can afford.

Address: Istiklal Caddesi 22, 1^st floor, Beyoglu
Telephone: (212) 292-4167

Metalurji Muhendisligi Lokali: Fish Alchemy
We never thought much about metallurgy as a profession. Nor did the concept of union membership ever seem very appealing, with all the meetings and monthly dues. That all changed after a mighty fine night at the Metallurgist Union’s lokal, where dinner can be a communal affair – during our meal a dish of pickled anchovies was sent over by another table of friendly metallurgists. The simple, fresh food here is always tasty and, as all fans of this place point out, very cheap.

About the food, one regular said, “I don’t go there to eat fancy food. I go there to sit at a table with my friends and eat a heaping plate of fried fish.” That about sums up the dining experience: there’s nothing dainty about it but the place has a convivial spirit that seems to infect the entire room as if someone left the laughing gas running.

A few meze – of which the patlican soslu (fried eggplant cubes in a tomato sauce) was our favorite – a large green salad with shredded cabbage and carrots, a plate of fried “chacha” (pinky-sized bait fish), two orders of unidentified but very good boneless white fish that fried up like a catfish, and enough raki to make us giggly and then sleepy cost 25 TL/person. That’s reason enough, for some, to consider a career change, and union membership.

Address: Taksim Caddesi 14, Taksim
Telephone: No phone

(photo by Yigal Schleifer)