For a country that in western eyes is often perceived as the gateway to the mysterious east, Turkish cuisine is remarkably well known. Kebab shops abound on every high street and Turkish restaurants are now commonplace across European capitals, where meze has been taken up as an exotic eastern alternative to tapas.
Turkish has been hailed one of the world's three great cuisines – along with French and Chinese – and has been a point of pride since the Ottomans ruled over a swathe of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. While Sultan Suleiman "The Magnificent" was stocking his harem with women plucked from across the empire, his palace chefs were studiously searching every conquered kitchen for new flavours to impress their ruler.
For 600 years Istanbul was the epicentre of a culinary whirlwind; entire careers were devoted to tweaking dishes to perfection, the reactions to which were enshrined in colourful names like Hunkar begendi or "Sultan liked it" (puréed aubergine with diced veal) and Hanim göbegi "Lady's navel", a syrupy dessert with a dip in the middle (the Sultan's harem must have been on his mind).
Nowadays, despite balancing between Europe and Asia, Istanbul's restaurant scene is not the cultural melting pot you might expect. Cuisines popular everywhere else, such as Thai and Indian, haven't yet made a big impression. When I asked Lorraine Sinclair, executive chef at the Mövenpick Hotel in the northern business district of 4 Levent, she was unable to think of any international eateries to recommend, telling me firmly: "When I go out, I eat Turkish."
Vedat Basaran, a local celebrity chef who has lectured around the world on Ottoman cuisine, says this is more a reflection of the nature of Turkish food than a reluctance to try something new. "It's not that Turks are conservative; when you have a powerful cuisine it's quite normal."
In Istanbul's restaurants, careers are once more being devoted to Ottoman cuisine – this time to preserving its rich, experimental style. Vedat Basaran has dedicated his restaurant, Feriye, to showcasing original Ottoman dishes. A visit to Feriye (pictured left), in the district of Ortaköy on the banks of the Bosphorous, offers easy access to all that is magical about Istanbul. All the ingredients are present to conjure Istanbul of the imagination: shimmering water; floodlit mosques and palaces glowing like beacons on the opposite coast; and the plaintive cry from the nearby mosque, gradually spreading across the city.
Wine glasses in hand, we watched the tiny headlights of the Friday night traffic creep along the bridge to the Asian side, a reminder of the city's habitual gridlock – and the fact that we had spent a disproportionate amount of our time trapped in it. The traffic problem in Istanbul means it's best to explore each area of the city at length to minimise time in taxis, or you'll find yourself becoming at home in the back of them.
To unearth Ottoman recipes, Basaran has taught himself to read the long-forgotten language of the Ottomans, a hybrid of Arabic script with Turkish words and grammar. In his office he showed us a yellowing, 144-year-old cookbook full of diagrams and recipes that he has translated into his own kitchen.
In the outdoor dining area we ate grilled sardines in moist, lemony vine leaves; artichokes in olive oil; vine leaves stuffed with mince meat served with sour cherries; and wonderful traditional Turkish manti, or dumplings, stuffed with sea bass and served with mint and yoghurt. Fish in Istanbul is among the more expensive dishes on the menu, but it wasn't always this way; it was so plentiful in the days of the Ottomans that they dismissed it as food "for the poor" and too common to be seen eating.
Another sublime waterside setting is Tugra, signature restaurant of the çiragan Palace Kempinski hotel, which also specialises in Ottoman dishes and offers outside eating on the terrace, or in a sumptuous indoor dining room with a live fasil band. Head chef
Aydin Demi explains he is as faithful to Ottoman origins as possible with some necessary tweaks. Ottomans were keen on their saturated fats; nowadays olive oil is used as a healthier alternative to butter, and lamb is less prominent – though still the principal meat on all Turkish menus.
I queasily avoided lamb – within a day or two of arriving I had consumed a year's supply – and chose Adana-style marinated chicken "?i?" kebab with bulgur pilaf, grilled vegetables and nectarine, followed by Asure, an eclectic soupy pudding containing sugar, raisins, figs, apricots, kidney beans, chickpeas and barley with vanilla extract. It's dubbed "Noah's pudding" – according to lore, Noah in his Ark was running short of food and threw everything he had left into a big pot (luckily he didn't have pickled onions).
Another upmarket choice is Asitane, at the Kariye Hotel in the district of Edirnekapi. The hotel is housed in a 19th century Ottoman mansion and is next door to the St Saviour of Chora church (Kariye Camii), a sight which is neglected by many visitors for being slightly off the beaten path but is worth seeing for its beautiful 4th century Byzantine mosaics.
Through careful scrutiny of the kitchen archives of Topkapi and Dolmabahçe palaces, general manager Servet Ocak and his staff have assembled a collection of recipes dating back to a specific occasion – a huge feast thrown by Sultan Suleiman in November 1539 to celebrate his sons' circumcision.
Original dishes are marked on the menu and include Kavun dolmasi, a melon rather experimentally stuffed with mince meat, rice, herbs, almonds, currants and pistachios, and then baked. We tried Badem çorbasi, almond soup flavoured with coconut; Hassa boregi, a sheet of flat-bread twisted into a ring and stuffed with cheese, olives, walnuts, yoghurt and tarragon; spring chicken stewed with almonds, dried apricots and grapes, flavoured with honey and cinnamon; and for dessert, saffron pudding (zerde), an alarmingly yellow, refreshing milky concoction.
You can't visit Istanbul without popping over to Asia for lunch. While the European quarter has Istanbul's historic heart, commercial centre and nightlife, the Asian side has a more unhurried feel. A 15-minute ferry ride from Besiktas deposited us in the district of üskudar. After wandering up the hill and taking in the view of Europe we settled down at Kanaat, a no-nonsense canteen-style restaurant descended from the lokanta, a traditional workers' café where stomachs are filled with staple Turkish dishes and alcohol is banned. Vegetable dishes swimming in olive oil are rushed from the kitchen along with soups, salads and kebabs.
This is fast food Turkish-style; dishes are on display under a glass counter so you can view what you're about to order. My Biber dolmasi, green pepper stuffed with rice and mince meat and drenched in an oily tomato sauce, looked insipid but was delicious, hearty and filling. I also chose Imam biyaldi, aubergine stuffed with garlic, tomato and onion, which means "Imam fainting" and is named after a highly strung Imam who was overcome with shock at the variety of ingredients his wife was cooking with. Dessert was delicious: Ayva tatlisi, a huge quince with thick clotted cream.
Unpretentious traditional fare is also available on the European side. Beyoglu is the cosmopolitan heart of Istanbul, where shops and restaurants line the main street of Istiklal Caddesi leading from the huge featureless Taksim Square all the way down to the Golden Horn.
Near the top is Haci Abdullah, a smart old-style restaurant that has been in operation since 1888 and prides itself on serving Turkish-Ottoman favourites. I ate Hunkar begendi, a bed of puréed barbecued aubergine that looked a little like green rice pudding, topped with diced veal marinaded in a peppery tomato sauce.
There are plenty of places to relax in front of plates of meze in the cafés off Istiklal Caddesi. But by far the best that we tried was in Borsa, an upscale eatery housed in the Istanbul convention and exhibition centre in the district of Harbiye. The restaurant is in the middle of nowhere, only accessible by car, but inside is stylish with dark wood, plush banquettes and gleaming marble.
The meze is wonderful – tiny lamb ravioli with garlic yoghurt, pide (mini Turkish-style pizzas) cooked in a brick oven, which were rich and crunchy, and Su boregi with cheese, layers of pastry cooked with butter and eggs into a light, crumbly flan.
In Borsa I finally succumbed to Istanbul's quirkiest dish – Tavuk göksu, or chicken breast dessert. It arrived as a cream-coloured splat with an encouraging scoop of ice cream, and consisted of, yes, chicken breast, shredded over and over with the strands weaved into a milky pudding. The result was a mild and virtually undefinable flavour – well, it was chicken – and a smooth, gritty, fibrous texture. For those who like a little colour in their food there is another version with a brown layer of caramelised sugar on top. Only a cuisine as revered and experimental as Turkish-Ottoman, with a sultan to satisfy, could have devised such a delicacy.
For more information about Istanbul, call the Turkish Tourist Office on +44 (0)20 7355 4207 or visit gototurkey.co.uk.
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