Monday

Perazin: That Old Meyhane Magic

In an opinion piece published recently in the Latitude blog of The New York Times, veteran Turkey correspondent Andrew Finkel’s brutally honest appraisal of the state of “New Turkish Cuisine” called much of Istanbul’s restaurant establishment – down to the customers – into question. We’ve had similar misgivings after meals in some upscale nouveau meyhanes where fussy food and too much attention to interior design ends up spoiling an atmosphere that is supposed to be fun.

When trying new restaurants these days, we are rarely reminded of the time when we first fell in love with a table here. That place may have had a white tablecloth, but it was one freckled with cigarette burns. There was certainly a bottle of rakı in the center of a pile of mezes and a crowd drinking, laughing and even dancing around it. Tables were dragged around to accommodate the social cross-pollination that happens when such a room is in full swing.

The rest of this new review can be found on CulinaryBackstreets.com, here.