Fine dining in Istanbul

Making the best out of a transfer flight, I recently had an insightful day in Istanbul. I saw a couple of Ottoman impressionists at the Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, visited two worthwhile restaurants, and saw a few cats, as usual. Let me write a few words about the food.

The signature dish of Yeni Lokanta, mantı.

Yeni Lokanta, my lunch spot. Tastefully decorated, eerily empty, great service. Most importantly, it has one of the most ingenious menus for refined Turkish cuisine. It feels as if the menu was based on a traditional Turkish dining experience but brought into the Western style, rather than simply introducing Turkish ideas into existing French courses. The first indicator of this is the bread and butter service; starting with an açma con mahlep and sadeyağ (ghee) is such an obvious decision for a Turkish person, yet this was my first time seeing it. Then, the mantı: they make the dish itself and improve upon the sauce in such a way that it becomes a signature of the restaurant. A great mindset! This contrasts with another dish, the çiğ köfte tartare. I also liked it, yet it was a French dish through and through, just with some isot and sumac. I prefer the former approach to course design over the latter. As a side note, the cheese/pastırma börek is not a well-designed plate; avoid it. Otherwise, it’s an absolute must-visit. Get the Vinkara Kalecik Karası Reserve 2020 as the wine.

The best Turkish red of the year, Barolo incarnate.

Neolokal, the dinner spot. It has the same mindset as Yeni Lokanta, executed quite well—admittedly, for that price, anything less would be unacceptable. The fixed menu truly represents Turkish cuisine. What a great lahana sarma! The fish cookery was also wonderful; both the bonito and the haddock were impeccable.

Yet, two patterns of failure that persist in Turkish fine dining continue here.

First is the inability to cook great lamb. The mutancana was good, of course, but if you cook a piece of lamb for hours with fruit, then mash and cube it, you don’t really trust yourself to create meat with a good texture, do you? OD Urla had a very similar dish a few years ago (with coffee grounds)—similarly cubed tandır-just a sad plate. It’s not even close to Aşçı Bacaksız, nor the goat made at Yedi Mehmet. Frankly, I make better tandır at home (the trick is to use a 1:1 ratio of lamb fat to meat).

The second failure follows a similar theme of mishandling a classic: the baklava. I don’t think there’s much to discuss about the dish itself, but here’s an important insight: Baklava, as it’s made in Antep, is possibly the most highly engineered dish in Turkish cuisine. If you can’t improve upon it, either just serve one purchased from Antep or don’t serve it at all. The second dessert, Frigo, tasted better than the baklava, which was served with a horrendous ice cream. It was both infuriating and sad.

Now, of course, the text above is not gentle. Would I recommend Neolokal, though? Absolutely! It was the best fine dining experience I have had in Turkey so far. I need to visit TURK soon, though.

Thanks for the meal!