Postcard from Istanbul: June 2024

A winey getaway, bountiful markets and looking ahead to a busy summer.

Jun 05, 2024

It was a couple of weeks early, courtesy perhaps of an unusually warm winter, but the wisteria growing up the front of my house wasted no time in showing us once again how happy it is about its placement.

Admittedly, I have mixed feelings about it.

The intense flowering gives me an early bout of hayfever as strong as I haven’t had since I was teenager.

But it also signals the arrival of the most beautiful time of year to be in Turkey: Spring. And once the green leaves grow, it gives some much needed privacy from the many tourists on the streets outside. A week or two of itching and sneezing seems a small price to pay.

A winey weekend getaway

I was an easy ask when a couple of friends suggested a weekend getaway. Our destination? A vineyard resort a few hours west of the city.

It was a wonderful decision. We started Scandinavian early (with yours truly, by some margin the longest standing Istanbul resident of the group, arriving a Turkish 15 minutes late), giving us time to stop for a Turkish breakfast on our way. We chose the place by random, but turned out to be a gem. Delicious, home made breakfast in green surroundings, complete with ducklings and rabbits around us!

Hard to believe that we were, technically, still in Istanbul.

Our destination was as beautiful as it was exciting and friendly.

As soon as we arrived, we were immediately asked when we wanted to do our private tour of the vineyards and – of course – a wine tasting involving a range of what they make onsite. With two journalists as my travelling companions on top of my own curiosity, we learned a lot about Turkish winemaking that afternoon.

At the vineyards. I know it looks cloudy in the background, but it was a very bright day! I even got a little sunburned!

With Burcu and Can, our guides for the day at the vineyard as well as during the wine tasting. Not pictured (escaped as we were setting up): The resident cat *Hurrem*, who ate most of our complimentary cheese.

Turkish wine has (rightly) had a bit of a shady reputation, but rest assured the quality is improving crop by crop, vineyard by vineyard. It’s only a matter of time before Turkish wines have a Georgian or Greek moment.

We visited a further two vineyards the next day, returning to Istanbul with a trunk full of some of the best bottles of Turkish wine we’d ever tasted. I’ll be dedicating a separate newsletter or two to this trip (and Turkish wine) a little later.

Istanbul: The city of the old and the new, the local and the global…

I don’t know if it’s a covid effect, an age thing or something else, but I don’t dine out as much as I used to. When I recently dined at Sahil Restoran, my favourite old school meyhane that happens to be right next to my neighbourhood, it had been years since my last visit. Sahil was obviously on my recent list of favourite places to eat in Istanbul.

I was happy to see that the quality was as good as ever. As ever, we enjoyed some of the more curious items on their menu. Wild mushroom meze, tripe stew and a ox tongue, Turkish pastrami style (cured with spices including fenugreek). We skipped the lamb brain salad, but were hoping to have their fried liver, but, alas, we were too late. Other diners had scooped up all of the day’s supply before we even arrived. Such is the nature of a place that values quality and freshness above all else.

Mezes at Sahil Restoran. From top, clockwise: Topik (Armenian spiced onions in chickpea coating), ox tongue “pastrami”, atom (spicy yoghurt), baked runner beans in olive oil and mixed wild mushrooms.

Not to worry, as we moved on to a nearby restaurant to finish not with dessert, but with another Turkish specialty: kelle paça çorbası. Lamb’s head soup. A lot tastier than it sounds, this soup is based on the stock and meat of lamb heads. Topped with lots of garlic and vinegar, it was a suiting end to an evening of a deep dive into the more unusual corners of Turkish food culture.

Kelle paça çorbası – lamb’s head soup – at Meşhur Balat İşkembe Salonu.

As if to prove the point of Istanbul’s enduring cosmopolitanism, with a range of traditions and perspectives living side by side on these lands for centuries, I found myself in the hip district of Moda a few days later. Home to a more Western oriented crowd and many Western immigrants, the area offers a large number of more internationally minded restaurants.

We had salt beef sandwiches at Rita Deli, having seen it recommended on a YouTube channel earlier (YouTube is huge in Turkey). They were delicious – better than London’s famous Brick Lane ones – if a little pricey.

Salt beef sandwiches with a little pink shot of pickle juice alongside.

Bountiful markets

Every Istanbul neighbourhood has a weekly market, offering prime produce at decent prices to the local population. In Balat, it’s on Tuesdays.

I’ve not been going as often I used to, mostly because I’ve switched to buying organic when I can, which means a lot of online shopping, which I top up with our excellent local greengrocer.

But I often miss strolling the market, just taking in the colours, smells and sounds that I know would be pretty much the same a century ago.

Carrying more produce than my hands can take in 30°+C heat? Not so much.

With the first of the summer fruits now coming into season, it was time to revisit the market, though. My usual suppliers were still there, of course. I bought as much fruit as I could carry. Cherries, apricots, green plums, strawberries. Delicious!

This is from a different market, but you get the idea. Who can resist leaving with a few bags of produce?

An eventful culinary tour

As May drew to a close, I had the pleasure of joining a group of culinary tourists from Norway. Over two eventful days, we explored a route I’d carefully curated across the spice market, local food markets, a walking tour in Balat and – of course – a Turkish feast at my favourite restaurants here in Istanbul together with our local guide.

Here are the places we stopped at: A guided food shopping tour of Istanbul (for paying subscribers)
A few things to buy when visiting Istanbul

The guests left happy, full and in the spirit of Turkish enthusiasm: As we exited the restaurant of our goodbye dinner, the streets were full of cars and people celebrating Galatasaray clinching the Turkish football (soccer) premiership over arch rivals Fenerbahçe in the last game of the season. Flags, honking horns, unlimited happy faces – and pop up köfte sellers on carts along the road for those hungry from all the singing and cheering.

Looking ahead to a busy summer

I’ll shortly be heading to Norway for a long awaited visit to see family and friends, as well as important meetings with my publisher. While I don’t see it as a holiday, work will be second priority, because once I return, I’ll immediately get going for summer season: Finalising the recipes and completing the manuscript for my fourth book.

This isn’t anything unusual for me. It’ll be the fourth summer since 2017 that I’ve spent writing a book (and the summer prior to writing my first book, I was working on its proposal).

I don’t mind it. Istanbul’s too hot to be too much out and about in summer, and I’m not a beach boy, nor do I prefer holidaying at busy places when everyone else is, too.

Though I know it’s going to be more work than I think at this point (it always is), I’m by no means starting from scratch. I’ve already been working on the book for some time, and thinking about it for even longer. But this summer is when I’ll be putting (virtual) pen to paper to complete the manuscript by my editor’s deadline of 1 September. Wish me luck!

🔜 Coming this Friday for paying subscribers:

Lebanese chicken kebab (Taouk shish)

Istanbul’s hot this week, so this feels like a good time to share my favourite way to barbecue chicken. This will be a bonus recipe for paying subscribers.