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Istanbul al fresco

Published: 01/06/2007 - Filed under: Archive » 2007 » July/August 2007 » Destinations » Features » Destinations » Europe »

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Blame it on the Pyramid imagery gracing those Turkish-blend Camel cigarette packets. Until you've been to Istanbul, your mental image is, let me guess, of somewhere aridly Islamic: a desiccated metropolis of kiln-fired earth tones, like Cairo, Damascus or pancake-flat Tehran.

Well, the refreshing reality is that mosque-littered, minaret-spiked Istanbul – Byzantium to ancient Greek mariners, Constantinople as rechristened by the Romans – is a spectacular city by the sea. A city where gulls freeze on the breeze as white commuter ferries trail scarves of black smoke between the European and Asian shores; where flippingly fresh fish spits on quayside grills, to be doused in lemon and forked into a baguette for lunch on the hoof.

Istanbul is not merely a city by the sea. It is a city defined by the sea, slashed east and west by the wide cobalt Bosphorus waterway: the "cow ford" strait of Greek mythology. Subdued once by sixth-century BC Persians – then again, almost 2,000 years later, by Mehmet the Conqueror and his merry band of Ottomans – it kinks and glints like a glittering necklace of great lakes. Heading south from the Black Sea with a cargo of dolphins, oil tankers and tiny skiffs, after 30km it debouches into the Sea of Marmara. It makes the Thames seems tame.

As a city garlanded by great waters, Istanbul is also one of diverse seasons. Come autumn the fishermen are out in force, bobbing in small blue-and-white boats to net the schools of bonito that migrate down from the Black Sea. In winter, heavy snow from Russia may blow in – flurries scurrying suddenly south-by-south-west, coating the mosques and russet rooftops in icing-white while millions of citizens sleep. And, hopefully, spring will bring rashes of pink flowers as the Judas trees bloom along the steep evergreen shores, presaging summer...

Which is when you'll find Istanbul at its scantily clad sexiest, emerging after dark to party on city rooftop and shoreline. Few metropolises in the world metamorphose quite like it – unless you count Athens, which relocates hip bars and restaurants to premises on the island of Mykonos when the big city gets too hot to handle. Istanbul, by contrast, revels in the heat of the moment. And so, when you're here, should you.

MIKLA

167/185 Mesrutiyet Caddesi; tel +90 212 293 5656

For vertiginous value, nowhere tops Mikla. It's the best restaurant by Mehmet Gürs – Istanbul's principal designer-diner-monger. You'll find it lodged teeteringly at the summit of the high-rise modern Marmara Pera Hotel: a plate-glass eyrie looking down on the mosque-blistered old town. Two breeze-cooled terraces (one bar, one restaurant) are eyed up by wheeling gulls. Latino sounds drift, lighting is low and warm and the generous martinis simply won't be upstaged at any other gin joint in the city. For dinner, you've got food as funky as the Italo-Scandic furniture: perhaps a starter of arugula, mint, apricots and cumin; possibly a hefty shared main of whole roasted beef tenderloin with bouquet garni and part-glazed onion. Just make sure you're light enough to ascend the steps for the ultimate high: the white-furnished roof bar, a one-in-a-million outcrop surveying the scattered mosques and minarets below.

NU TERAS

Mesrutiyet Caddesi 145-147; tel +90 212 245 6070

Gürs's other al fresco nightspot is as slick a trick as you'll find in any world city, with splendid fondant-centred tuna, pepper-crusted, among its fashion-fish dishes. It unfurls on the flat roof of a skinny block in the louchely hip district of Asmalimescit, some several stories above Agatha Christie's beloved Pera Palas hotel (which stands dolefully boarded up, casting a haunted look). Nu Teras draws the faithful nightly to its intimate, open-to-the-skies arena, where the tea-lit decor of pale-leather banquettes and dark wood underfoot is outshone only by the sunsets. These burn themselves out slowly across that immortal waterway of antiquity, the Golden Horn, which joins the Bosphorus where Byzantium was born. Beyond is the brochure view of mosques bubbling on the horizon, soundtracked by the call to prayer as spotlights turn them orange at dusk. It's ironic to contemplate the line-up through stacked spirits bottles, drinking your G'n'T on a stool at the dizzying infinity-edge bar.

BANYAN

Muallim Naci Caddesi, Salhane Sokak 3; tel +90 212 259 9060

The shorefront quarter of Ortaköy ("middle village") has the lot: taxi proximity to the urban hubbub of downtown Beyoglu, and a fine maritime setting around a cobbled square that centres on textbook-pretty Mecidiye Mosque. Sunday craft stalls lend the place a hippie air, with cafés spilling along side alleys. Elevated above the proceedings, Banyan keeps its cool with a projecting back deck and a smart design featuring white-painted plank floors, Thai lanterns and spangly cushions on earth-tone banquettes. With darkening skies comes the call to prayer – the muezzin might have to duet with "Que Sera Sera" on the bar speakers but you're too drugged by the third margarita to care. Swivel your head south and the Byzantine promontory noses its way into the confluence of Bosphorus and Golden Horn: charcoal against the sunset are Topkapi Palace, bulbous Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque. Ahead, tiny tugs struggle against the tide. And all around you, elaborate lacquered hairdos move reluctantly in light gusts, as waiters waltz by bearing mod-Med concoctions on oversized plates.

ANGELIQUE

Muallim Naci Caddesi, Salhane Sokak 10; tel +90 212 327 2844

With the advent of summer, a string of chi-chi nightclubs unravels along the Bosphorus around Ortaköy. Stacked beside the water's edge, fluoro-lit and open to the stars, they're reminiscent less of big-city action than of a smart Mediterranean island, and they're aimed firmly at Istanbul's pushy designer-label stable. Fortunately, club-restaurant Angelique manages to strike the right balance – pleasing the too-tight T-shirt crowd with heart-shuddering house from around midnight, while keeping up appearances with mirrors against blue-on-white furnishings and tables above the Bosphorus. For all the shove, it's truly romantic – ripples shatter the moon's path with each passing prow, producing a sudden magic tinselled backdrop as you pick at figure-friendly portions.

LEB-I-DERYA

Kumbaraci Is Hani 115/7, Kumbaraci Yokusu; tel +90 212 293 4989

This late haunt is a bohemian tippler's delight, tucked six storeys up on the roof of a thin apartment block down a tumbling alley in edgy Beyoglu. The place is open year-round, but when evenings grow more glowing the terrace is the nicest little open-air nook a summer-night city could wish for. Exiting the rickety lift, ease your way among the scrum. Soon you'll find the little deck, edged with its waxy uplit bar counter. Pull up a stool and summon the waiter for a large glass of iced Turkish rosé. Then sit back and admire Leb-i-Derya's USP: nothing between you and the panoramic view. It's a canyon of blocky neighbourhoods, a million windows glittering, all falling steeply to the black-mirror surface of the Bosphorus. The timber Ottoman homes by the waterfront recall San Francisco, and the night-lit city is like a biblical Manhattan sprinkled over hills and shores.

MANGERIE

Cevdet Pasha Caddesi 69; tel +90 212 263 5199

Ten minutes or so north of Ortaköy by cab you reach Bebek, Istanbul's squillionaire-expat enclave. The fingernail curve of high street gazes across to Asia, as ocean-going freighters plough north to the Black Sea, and it's a Sunday ritual among residents to take in the view over breakfast on the diminutive deck at Mangerie. Casual it may feel, but the bistro betrays a faux-hemian streak, with aluminium café chairs, squashy white calico-look sofas and jugs of green mint lemonade not like Mom used to make. As the morning sun slants in, kids dash about, and you peruse the menu, trying to decide what will best limit last night's damage: perhaps focaccia toast with prosciutto. Or – bugger it – a big fat hamburger.

BESINCI KAT

5th Floor, Soganci Sokak 7, off Siraselviler Caddesi; tel +90 212 293 3774

Helmed by a flamboyant Turkish actress, this breezy late restaurant has long since earned its place in Istanbul's alternative-nightlife pantheon. It's up the elevator from a landmark gay watering hole, Bar Bahce, five minutes from the taxi-hoot of Taksim Square. So you can expect after-dark owls of increasingly exotic plumage to whirl in as the night grows older. But it's all good cosmopolitan fun whatever your persuasion – as evidenced by the menu, which might veer from salad Niçoise to Madras-style chicken. The main event is the summer terrace and the show it lays on: swooning views of the sleeping Asian shores sweeping north in the distance, and the broad Bosphorus coursing south.

KORFEZ

Körfez Caddesi 78; tel +90 216 413 4314

By far the most seductive aspect of Istanbul's suburban Asian shore is the 20-minute voyage there: on a swan-white ferry if you like, drinking tea from tulip glasses; or, better still, on your own little launch, bobbing severely in the blue swell left by monster oil tankers bound for Azerbaijan. Körfez ("bay") – possibly Istanbul's best fish restaurant – is christened after its cove location in Kanlica. It's so blink-and-you'll-miss-it, they send their own skiff to fetch you from Europe, returning you woozily after your long, lazy lunch. The look is unremarkable, yet the city doesn't get much more rarefied than this: refreshing Turkish white wine from a chill-beaded bottle at one of a clutch of concrete-terrace tables in parasol shade; then perhaps the Körfez Basket (chunks of mixed fish with a light curry sauce, in a crisp pastry case). Tune out any international small talk of hedge funds and property deals and you'll be alone, save for the jellyfish pulsing hypnotically in the transparent quay shallows.

360

Istiklal Caddesi Misir Apt. K: 8 N: 32/311; tel +90 212 251 1042

The clue's in the name at this vast glass cube wrapped by a (near) 360-degree terrace. Dusty Beyoglu lies below you, all intestinal alleyways foraged by cats; look beyond the aerials and cluttered rooftops and the city's defining sea is mercury in the last blaze of light that comes before dusk. Turkish architects, evidently out to ape middle-period Wallpaper*, invested 360 with Arne Jacobsen-look furniture: there are beech-tone tables crisply clad in white tablecloths, bulbs curling down on flexes, sofas in vague stylistic salutes to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and rod-thin stools for quick-fix dining. If it all sounds a trifle carbon-copy cool, well, it is, attracting a diverse clientele thanks to a reputation that's reached out-of-towners and on-a-budget overlanders. All the same there's a real relax-into feel to the place, helped by huge floor-standing candles and caipirinhas that bring colour to cheeks. Food ticks most boxes – modern ("society shish remix" fillet with aubergine relish and spiced country butter) without being overly so (potato-wrapped sea bass, roasted bellpeppers and argula salad). On warm nights, as the glass cube's sliding doors concertina back to fuse inside and out, the place comes alive, and the city winks into life, as far as the eye can see.

HOUSE CAFÉ ORTAKOY

Ortaköy Salhanesi Sokak 1; tel +90 212 227 2639

Here we have what you might call Istanbul's take on London's All Bar One brand – effortlessly nicer-looking, though. House Café is a several-strong chain of brasserie/faux-boho outlets that work a treat since each has its own persona, drawn from the neighbourhood it occupies. You could, for instance, take a bench table outside the Asmalimescit branch and immediately be immersed in the after-work world of those upcoming artists and journalists who inhabit the scruffy-chic apartment blocks. But for maritime views, the Ortaköy sibling is the winner, over wine and pizzas at a table on its open terrace, gazing out on the heavy seagoing traffic. Inside, House Café Ortaköy goes for Parisian with its casual sofas and polished wood surfaces – and it pulls it off neatly, creating a casual place to idle when you next find yourself in Istanbul with a little spare time on your hands.

GETTING THERE

Served by British Airways from Heathrow, by Turkish Airlines from Heathrow and Stansted and by Easyjet from Luton. Return fares with BA start at £220 for economy and £448 for business class. When booked through Travelocity (travelocity.co.uk) return fares with Turkish Airlines from Heathrow are £158 in economy and £391 for business class. From Stansted, Turkish charges £161 and £391 respectively.

Easyjet typically charges from £172. Its flights use Sabiha Gokcen airport on the Asian side of the Bosphorus (40km from downtown) whereas the others use the city's main Ataturk airport (24km from the city centre).

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