Turkish Cuisine Archive

Whether you are or not, pick up the latest editions of the Rough Guide to Turkey and Rome, two excellent travel resources to which I contributed this year. You can purchase the Rough Guide to Rome here and the Rough Guide to Turkey here.

True to any Turkish BBQ place worth it’s salt, Mangal 2 in London’s Dalston has its meat and offal displayed in a glass case. Glistening in florescent light, it tempts diners with its appearance and freshness. Occasionally, it also defies gravity, as (more…)

Arnavut ciğeri, Turkish for Albanian liver, is actually lamb’s liver. It is cut into strips, pan fried with with onions, dusted with paprika, and served with fresh parsley leaves. I had never had an impressive plate of it outside of Turkey until a trip to (more…)

When I go to Istanbul, I don’t mess around. I plan my meals months before my arrival and try to work in at least four a day. On a recent trip, I did some serious damage. I hit up some old favorites and found some new ones. Here is a recap of some (more…)

When my friend Can heard I was going to Istanbul, he insisted I check out Kazan Antebi in Caddebostan. He spoke of the place with an urgency that suggested if I missed it, I would be committing a culinary crime more heinous than (more…)

My last day in Istanbul was a bit packed with work, so I couldn’t go far for my final meal. Between writing assignments, I made the 10 minute stroll from my friends’ house in Baltalimanı to Iskele Restaurant in Rumelihisarı. I put away quite (more…)

Zeytinyağlı is a style of preparation in Turkish cuisine in which vegetables or legumes are cooked in olive oil. Zeytinyağlı taze fasulye are flat green beans (they are called fagioli a corallo in Italian, I have no idea what the English equivalent is) (more…)

After being stuck in Istanbul’s interminable Saturday night traffic for more than two hours, I finally made it to Selin‘s house in Nişantaşı. A feast of typical Turkish dishes awaited, and at the end came a Selin original: marinated apricots filled with kaymak.

On Sunday I grabbed brunch with my friend Şemsa Denizsel at Van Kahvaltı Evi (there are several locations but we met at Defterdar Yokuşu in Cihangir). Within minutes of being seated at an outside table, there was barely room (more…)

When I go to fish restaurants in Turkey, I fill up on mezes and rakı, skipping the main dish altogether. On a recent visit to Kuyu in Arnavutköy with my friends Sarah and Emre, we started out with cold starters like white cheese with melon, (more…)