We arrived at Melekler on a tip from a taxi driver from the southern Turkish city of Adana, where kebab talk can get esoteric. Because Istanbul taxi drivers always seem to be from somewhere else in Turkey and tend to be deeply suspicious of the restaurant business (“rip-off,” “filthy,” and “not tasty” are among the more benign descriptions we’ve heard about various places around town), we find them to be great sources for hard-to-find regional specialties. We’ve whittled away countless hours stuck in traffic on the bridge or inching by a stadium on game night arguing the merits of köfte or learning about the rare and great testi kebabi of Yozgat and, most importantly, where to get them in Istanbul. Of all the taxi drivers we’ve surveyed, few offered up a tip as emphatically as this particular driver from Adana telling us that we must have a durum at Melekler. So, one week later, we took a seat among all of that stock and ordered a durum, ala Adana, of course.

Mehmet usta, from his post at the grill, said there’s not much to it, “Durum should be good and it should be cheap and I’m not skimping on the materials here.” His statement takes for granted a bachelors degree in butchery (the meat for a true kebab is cut with a special knife called a zirh, see demonstration here) a great instinct for balancing of flavor and preternatural grill skills. Mehmet worked a group of long skewers over an intense white-coaled fire with ease until it was ready and swiped the meat onto a wide flat piece of lavaş. He added onions, sumac, and plenty of parsley before rolling and giving the finished product a quick, valedictory roasting over the coals. The result was as good as promised.
When dealing with top-tier durum it can be hard to pinpoint what it is that makes one durum so much better than another. That’s a discussion for folks from Adana. But we do know it when finely chopped fatty lamb, fresh onions and some simple spices create smoky harmony within a fresh flatbread as it did one recent afternoon at Melekler. As Mehmet usta said, it should be cheap and good, that’s it – a logic neither we nor most Istanbul taxi drivers would disagree with.

Address: Ipek Sokak 1, Taksim
Telephone: 212 243 0585
(located across from the entrance to Aya Triada Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Taksim)

(photo by Ansel Mullins)

(Editor’s Note: This review first appeared back in April of 2009. Turns out the “wrap stars” at Durumzade were among the stars of last night’s episode of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” show, which recently visited Istanbul. In honor of Durumzade’s new found 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 Durumzade – a grill joint positioned right on the fringe of the rowdy, bar-lined streets of the Beyoglu’s fish market – we’ve found a durum, or Turkish wrap, that’s equally satisfying at 2am or 2pm.

If a sandwich is only as good as its bread, then any durum discussion is all about thelavash, the Turkish tortilla that’s used to make it. Durumzade’s thin ovular lavash, rubbed with a mix of red pepper and spices, is far from the stiff, uniform discs found in many other durum joints. Like a good thin pizza crust, Durumzade’s lavash 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 lavash: chicken kebab (tavuk sheesh), 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 lavash. 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 lavash off of the fire directly. As the lavash tent heats up, the spice rub on the wrap imparts its flavor onto the skewered meat below. While the lavash 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 durum (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 Kulluk Cad. 26/A Beyoglu
Telephone: 212-249-0147

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 Durumzade – a grill joint positioned right on the fringe of the rowdy, bar-lined streets of the Beyoglu’s fish market – we’ve found a durum, or Turkish wrap, that’s equally satisfying at 2am or 2pm.

If a sandwich is only as good as its bread, then any durum discussion is all about the lavash, the Turkish tortilla that’s used to make it. Durumzade’s thin ovular lavash, rubbed with a mix of red pepper and spices, is far from the stiff, uniform discs found in many other durum joints. Like a good thin pizza crust, Durumzade’s lavash 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 lavash: chicken kebab (tavuk sheesh), 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 lavash. 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 lavash off of the fire directly. As the lavash tent heats up, the spice rub on the wrap imparts its flavor onto the skewered meat below. While the lavash 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 durum (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 Kulluk Cad. 26/A Beyoglu
Telephone: 212-249-0147