From street eats to Michelin stars: How to eat your way around Istanbul

Every so often, you eat something that makes you stop in your tracks, perhaps even involuntarily sighing the words “Oh my God”, with not a thought as to who can hear you. A morsel of food so good that you know it’ll be imprinted in your mind’s mouth forever. And that’s just what happens when I eat balık dürüm in Istanbul.

The queue should have tipped me off. Though it’s only mid-morning, a small crowd has already formed in front of Balik Dürüm Mehmet Usta, a tiny street stall on which a man is flipping fillet after fillet of mackerel as they sizzle on a flat grill. While the skin is blackening, the cook pulls at each piece with a pair of tweezers, methodically teasing out bones as though they were stray eyebrow hairs. Beside the fish, there are mounds of shredded greens, carrots and pomegranate seeds, handfuls of which are thrown onto the grill when the fish is cooked, then doused with spices. The whole lot is rolled into a thin flatbread, which is in turn smothered in more spices and liberally squirted with lemon juice.

The process is hypnotic to watch. The man behind the grill makes hundreds of balık dürüm every hour, and nothing else. The finished result is like manna – the thick chunks of mackerel meaty and juicy, the fattiness cut through with the crunchy greens and flecks of pomegranate. And each carefully wrapped street snack costs just £2.

I eat mine on a little street in the old Istanbul neighbourhood of Karaköy, where tiny food stalls are interspersed with cafes serving up glasses of Turkish tea so strong it’ll put hair on your chest. People wander from hatch to shop, some eating wraps filled with fried meat, others with torn chunks of simit (a thin Turkish bagel) in their hands.

It’s food like this that makes eating in Istanbul such a joy. Anything that can be devoured while standing on a street corner – chewy pittas filled with sizzling doner meat, blackened ears of corn, giant wheels of lahmacun (a mince-covered flatbread) – they all taste better with the buzz of the city around you, the honk of car horns and the distant call to prayer coming from the mosques.

But Istanbul is more than just its street food. In October, Michelin launched its first-ever guide to the city, with 53 restaurants making the cut, and five awarded a star (or two). One such restaurant was Araka, run by the impossibly cool female chef Zeynep Pınar Taşdemir.

Sitting in a room lined with bare brick, tarnished mirrors and rubber plants that lean towards the sunny windows, it’s not hard to see why Michelin gave her that star. The plates that come out of Zeynep’s kitchen have that artsy panache that’s pure Michelin fodder, but with a homely, hearty feel.

There’s a slippery confit of celeriac, cut with sharply acidic slivers of green tomato and apple. There’s a thick slab of salty smoked bonito fish, on a bed of chunky almond tartare that I could happily eat with a spoon. Unmistakably Turkish flavours pop up throughout, from the plump briny olives on a plate of pumpkin, to the crispy fried vine leaf that’s splayed on top. But it’s the dessert that swings it – a triangle of baklava, filled with fig and halloumi, with a little globe of geranium ice cream on the side. It’s the perfect marriage of classically Turkish influences and new, fresh presentation.

After all, this is a baklava town. At Karaköy Güllüoğlu, the Güllü family have been making this flaky, many-layered treat since the 1800s, now producing two tonnes of it a day in their Karaköy shop. From the classic rectangles stuffed with pistachio to little bites in the shape of mussel shells, the team slings out tray after tray of baklava, slick and glossy with ghee and sugar syrup. But it’s their flat börek pastry that wins me over: those same paper-thin layers, only with a savoury stuffing of minced lamb. It tastes best smeared with a thick dollop of buffalo cream – the meaty cousin of clotted cream that partners beautifully with any baklava, sweet or salty.  

There are similar flavours at play come breakfast, when I tuck into a few slabs of gözleme at The House Café. Its thin sheets of pastry are stuffed with cheese and herbs, with a golden, pan-fried crust. A Turkish breakfast really is a thing of beauty – I also eat marinated cucumbers, triangles of salty local cheese, ruby red tomatoes and a green juice with a kick of parsley, rocket and lime. Another day starts with pişi, a ball of fried dough that’s half bread, half doughnut – the lovechild I didn’t realise was missing from my life.

While food is a big deal in Istanbul, this isn’t much of a drinking city. If you’re after a quality nightcap, your best bet is one of the rooftop bars attached to the swankiest hotels, where an Old Fashioned will run a lot cheaper than a room for the night. At the Four Seasons Sultanahmet, the A’YA Terrace has an unbeatable view of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. Over at the Conrad Istanbul, Summit Bar is one of the best rooftop spots in the city, highly rated by the folks at World’s Best Bars.

You’ll find a lot of great Turkish wine around town, too, especially on the pairing menu at the Bib Gourmand-awarded Alaf. Here, the menu is inspired by street food and cooked over fire, in a hip restaurant overlooking the Bosphorus. Settling in for the evening, I unfold the menu, which is presented as a map, showing how various dishes have been drawn from all over Turkey.

We start off in Marmara, with Armenian-inspired cured fish in a delicate pastry shell. Then it’s off to the Aegean region, for chewy, blistered Denizli peppers stuffed with cheese, sitting in a puddle of mulberry juice. The Cağ kebabı is from Erzurum in eastern Turkey and possibly the classiest kebab I’ve ever seen: a skewer of charred, fatty lamb sitting on a tiny disc of feathery light flatbread. 

I may not be eating it while standing on the street, but it’s sigh-worthy Turkish food at its absolute finest. And just one of the city-break bites I’ll be thinking about for years to come.