When Mezme, an excellent meze deli and meyhane tucked away on a tiny backstreet in the corner of Istanbul’s multicultural Kurtuluş neighborhood, first opened in 2020, it quickly became one of our go-to spots. Our hearts sank when the restaurant closed in early 2024, but we were delighted to find it recently reopened and charmingly renovated, with the friendly owner, chef, and lifelong Kurtuluş resident Sasun Estukyan back in his place helming the kitchen.
Prior to opening Mezme, Sasun worked for five years as a cook at a retirement home in Harbiye, a nearby neighborhood. But he says he felt a call to start making the mezes that he grew up eating and helping prepare, staples of his aunt and mother’s kitchens. These dishes blend classic Istanbul cuisine with that of the southern province of Hatay, from which his mother’s side of the family hails. Her family specifically traces their roots to Vakıflı, the only remaining Armenian village in Turkey, which Sasun routinely has visited since the 1990s. Sasun has an extensive background in the kitchen: prior to his job at the retirement home, he graduated from culinary school, worked at restaurants, and even traveled to Samandağ, the district of Hatay where Vakıflı is located, where he spent several months diving deep into the cuisine of the region, working at a hotel and traveling around the region to taste its specialties. Years later, this led to the birth of Mezme.
“We started doing takeaway service at home, and the pandemic started,” Sasun explains. “It became an opportunity: coffeehouses and cafes began to close. This place used to be a coffeehouse. All of a sudden there were many empty shops in Kurtuluş.” This enabled him to rent his space and transform Mezme from a home operation to a small restaurant, with takeaway service getting the nascent business through the pandemic.
Initially, Sasun worked with his mother and aunt, who ensured that he perfected their recipes. (They have since retired and now Sasun is working with a younger crew.) In 2024 Sasun parted ways with his business partner, closing Mezme but holding on to the space. In that time he continued to make meze in large orders for restaurants, hotels and delis, eventually making a triumphant return. The renovated Mezme is elegantly decorated with eight tables, exquisite glassware and cutlery, glistening chandeliers and shelves lined with products such as apricot jam and pure pomegranate syrup sourced from Vakıflı. We stopped in just before dinnertime, as Sasun already had several reservations, and he quickly welcomed us with an array of his meze, some of which made our Best Bites list of 2023 – and they have gotten even better since.
We were blown away by yoğurtlu semizotu, purslane bathed in yogurt and garlic. There was a fragrant, buoyant taste to this meze that we couldn’t quite put our finger on, and Sasun revealed that the secret ingredient was orange juice and orange zest. We had an excellent girit ezmesi, a spread that contained only three ingredients: pistachios, olive oil and a soft, slightly pungent goat cheese. There was a terrific potato salad made with mustard, mayonnaise and dill, which Sasun said was something of a European import that eventually became a fixture in Istanbul kitchens. The dana dil söğüş (braised, chopped beef tongue, served cold) is not something we would typically order, but here it was delicious. The köz patlıcan (a roasted eggplant dip) was smooth and smoky.
We couldn’t say no to lahana sarması, (cabbage rolls stuffed with rice) and then came the Hatay specialties: katıklı ekmek (flatbread with a a spread of sürk peyniri, a sharp Hatay cheese, and pepper paste), sembusek (baked dough pockets stuffed with olives, southeastern Turkey’s take on the samosa), and zahterli ekmek (flatbread with the special zahter spice blend, which is usually a mix of dried thyme, salt, sesame seed, and other spices). Each dish was fresh and fantastic, and this is only about half of what Mezme offers.
Kurtuluş has changed over the years, with a spike in popularity that has ushered in a wave of new residents, restaurants, bars and cafes, many of which we have written about with excitement. It seemed like a new place was opening up every week, but demand has started to wane and some of these establishments, even ones that had been open for years, have started to close down. But Mezme is a perfect fit – a cozy place for the neighborhood run by a man who has called it home his entire life.
“Kurtuluş is where I was born and raised; it is a very special place for me that I am a part of,” Sasun shared. “Inevitably, it is changing. Some of the changes are good, others are bothersome. What is important is protecting the essence of the neighborhood, its multicultural nature. You can find an apartment in which people from five different ethnic backgrounds live – that isn’t something you can reach easily everywhere [in Istanbul], and this amounts to richness.”
In spite of all the changes, with places like Mezme, we feel hopeful that the spirit of this beloved neighborhood will continue to live on.
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