What to Eat in Each Istanbul Neighborhood

What to eat in each Istanbul neighborhood

Istanbul food makes more sense when you stop thinking about it as one cuisine and start thinking about it as a map. Each neighborhood has a dish or two it does better than anywhere else, usually because of who lived there a hundred years ago, what the boats brought in, or which oven on which corner has been running since before anyone alive can remember. If you eat your way through the city by district, you end up understanding both the food and the city better than if you just chase the top-ranked restaurants on a list.

Here is what to eat in each Istanbul neighborhood, and where to do it.

Balat — bread, and what goes with bread. Balat is the old Greek and Jewish quarter on the Golden Horn, and the food memory the neighborhood keeps best is bread. The taş fırın (stone ovens) here have been running for decades, and the loaves come out of them dense, dark on the bottom, and the right kind of chewy. Meşhur Balat Köftecisi1948 has been doing köfte (grilled or pan-fried meatballs) with that bread since the year in its name, and the formula has not changed — meat, bread, pickled peppers, white bean salad, done. Around the corner, Balat Mantıcısı does mantı (small dumplings with yogurt) the old way, and Makam-ı Balat is where you sit if you want a longer lunch with a view of the colored houses.

Karaköy — fish sandwiches and the morning simit. Karaköy is a port neighborhood and it eats like one. The simit (sesame-crusted bread ring) cart outside the iskele (ferry terminal) is where the day starts for half the people working in the area. For something more substantial, Meşhur Balıkçı Eyyup Usta does the balık ekmek (grilled fish sandwich) the right way, with the fish actually grilled in front of you and the bread soft enough to fold around it. Kuzina Pide Karaköy is the move if you want pide (boat-shaped flatbread with toppings) instead. And Galata Simitçisi is the simit stop that locals still queue at, which is the only review that matters.

Ortaköy — midye dolma and the kumpir question. Ortaköy is famous for two things on the same square, and one of them is better than the other. The midye dolma (stuffed mussels) sold by the boys with the trays in Ortaköy Meydanı are excellent — three lira a piece, squeeze of lemon, one after the other until you stop. The kumpir (loaded baked potato) stalls are the more famous attraction and honestly the food is fine. The fun is in the ordering, watching them pile fifteen toppings onto a single potato. Eat one for the experience and do not pretend it was the best meal of the trip.

Çengelköy — fish, on the Asian side, with the view. Çengelköy is a small Bosphorus village on the Asian side, and it is where Istanbullus go on a Sunday to eat fish slowly. The waterfront restaurants serve whatever came in that morning, grilled simply, with a plate of meze (small shared plates) to start and a glass of raki (anise-flavored spirit) if you are doing it properly. You take the ferry from Beşiktaş, walk along the water, and pick whichever place has the table you want.

Kadıköy — the long lunch, the Anatolian kitchen. Kadıköy is where you go when you want to eat seriously. Çiya Sofrası on Güneşli Bahçe Sokak has been doing regional Anatolian dishes for thirty years, and the lunch menu changes daily depending on what the kitchen is working on. Yanyalı Fehmi Lokantası is the old-school lokanta (casual sit-down restaurant) option, open since 1919, where the kuru fasulye (white bean stew) tastes like someone's grandma made it because, more or less, someone's grandma did. Sayla Mantı does the dumplings, Kadıköy Midyecisi does the mussels late at night, and Çinili Taş Fırın Kadıköy does the bread that holds it all together.

Beyoğlu — the meyhane dinner. Beyoğlu is where dinner goes long. The meyhanes (traditional taverns) off the side streets around Nevizade are where you order meze for an hour before the fish shows up, drink raki slowly, and end up still at the table at midnight. Viktor Levi Şarap Evi is the wine-house version of the same idea if you do not drink raki, with a garden that softens the noise of the street.

Sultanahmet — eat one breakfast, then leave. Sultanahmet is where the monuments are, which means it is also where the worst restaurants are. We send people here for one breakfast, near their hotel, and tell them to do lunch and dinner anywhere else. The honest exception is Emek Saray Restaurant, which does proper Turkish food without the tourist markup, but the general rule holds. The neighborhood is for looking at, not for eating in.

That is the map. Eat by neighborhood, and the city starts to feel less like a list of restaurants and more like a place where people actually live and have been eating the same things for a very long time.