Friday

Meşhur Filibe Koftecisi: Keeping Their Eye on the Meatball

Where we come from, flipping burgers is a time-honored tradition among pimply teenagers looking for a summer job and troubled short-order cooks looking for a place to land in between firings. It’s work that promises mobility, not stability.

But don’t tell that to Ziver usta, who’s been turning the köfte – something like Turkey’s equivalent of the hamburger – at the grill of the Sirkeci neighborhood’s shoe-box sized Meşhur Filibe Köftecisi for the last 30 years. The dough-faced Ziver, 53, is actually the restaurant’s junior employee – “head waiter” Mehmet has been there for 40 years – but his long tenure means he’s only one of a select handful of grill masters who have worked at Filibe over the course of its 100-year history. Continue…