Sign up with email

or

Already a member? Log in.

Trouble logging in?

Not a member? Sign up!

Editor’s note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked chef Somer Sivrioglu of the Sydney restaurant Efendy where he stops first for food when he returns to his hometown of Istanbul. Sivrioglu is the chef and owner of Sydney’s popular Efendy restaurant and the recently opened Anason mezebar in Barangaroo. He is also the author of the cookbook Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish Cooking (Murdoch Books, April 2016). 

Any list is controversial and biased by its nature, and lists do not get any more biased than mine, as I am a Kadıköy fanatic and impossible to convince that there are better versions of food on the European side of Istanbul. I was born and raised in Kadıköy, and we lived first at Caferağa, five minutes to Kadıköy market, then in Moda, Kalamış and Fenerbahçe.

So my culinary Istanbul is quite different than that of most chefs from the area. I prefer my side to Karşı (across) in food, football and lifestyle. Here are some of the lesser-known but better-value experiences in and around Kadıköy.

When I’m in Istanbul, I live in rituals. My typical ritual is visiting Kokoreççi Adem Usta at his shop in Kadıköy market on the day of arrival so that my stomach and immune system recognize that I am in Istanbul. As a teenager, I used to visit him when he had a street cart on the wharf.

Çiya is by no means a secret anymore and is in my opinion the best restaurant in Turkey – if not the world. I am privileged to call owner Musa Dağdeviren my friend, and he is much more than a chef and restaurateur, having started the local and regional food movement in Turkey long before it was fashionable to do so. His three restaurants are a living temple of regional Anatolian food.

There are a lot more polished meyhanes on the European side, in touristy and/or trendy districts and with modern meze bars and live music, but if I want to go to a meyhane, the reason is always comfort, familiarity and tradition, to enjoy time with friends and family, drinking raki and tasting local flavors. The Asian side has many classics, like the seaside meyhanes of Inciraltı, Ismet Baba and Suna’nin yeri on the Bosphorus, Hatay in Bostancı and my family local, where my grandfather, father and now I go: Koco in Moda.

My childhood treat was picking up ice cream from Ali Usta in Moda, and now I take my kids there. There’s still only one branch – unlike with other ice cream moguls – and the ice cream is still produced in the back using real fruit and milk delivered fresh daily.

Coming from a family with roots in the Caucasus, we know our mantı and even more so our çiğ börek. I used to spend many weekends at the unassuming shop Sayla Mantı in Bahariye and am very happy to see that their mantı and çiğ börek are still the best in town.

Kadıköy market is one of the few remaining street markets in an Istanbul now overpopulated by shopping malls, and it’s a treasure to be cherished while it lasts. Many fish shops, greengrocers and sellers of pickles, nuts or offal line the streets, which are dotted with historical food stops like the Haci Bekir and Cafer Erol candy shops, Baylan patisserie and two of the best lahmacun shops in Istanbul, Halil and Borsam.

  • Grape ExpectationsNovember 16, 2018 Grape Expectations (1)
    Turkish wine is something of a paradox. Despite being one of the oldest winemaking […] Posted in Istanbul
  • Kadıköy KooperatifiAugust 13, 2020 Kadıköy Kooperatifi (0)
    In Kadıköy Kooperatifi, located on a residential street in Moda, a peaceful, almost […] Posted in Istanbul
  • KimyonSeptember 26, 2019 Kimyon (0)
    Kadıköy’s Kimyon is a friend of the after-hours and the booze-fueled denizens who are […] Posted in Istanbul

Published on June 03, 2016

Related stories

turkish wine
November 16, 2018

Grape Expectations: Finding Affordable (and Drinkable) Turkish Wine in Istanbul

Istanbul | By Andrea Lemieux
IstanbulTurkish wine is something of a paradox. Despite being one of the oldest winemaking countries on earth, Turkey is by no means a big wine-drinking country. Go to any bar or meyhane in Istanbul and you’re more likely to see people guzzling large pints of frothy beer or swirling delicate glasses containing cloudy rakı. Yet…
August 13, 2020

Kadıköy Kooperatifi: Better Food for the People

Istanbul | By Lorenza Mussini
IstanbulIn Kadıköy Kooperatifi, located on a residential street in Moda, a peaceful, almost sacred atmosphere reigns supreme. It’s a modest and sober place – quite different from the retail experience we’re accustomed to nowadays – but by no means dull. For months we had heard bits and pieces about the shop – a cooperative selling goods…
Explore Kadıköy on our Two Markets, Two Continents walk!
September 26, 2019

Kimyon: Round-the-Clock Kebab

Istanbul | By Paul Benjamin Osterlund
IstanbulKadıköy’s Kimyon is a friend of the after-hours and the booze-fueled denizens who are done at the bar but have yet to call it a night. It is the buffer zone between too many drinks and a brutal hangover, and doesn’t judge those who are still up at 6:30 a.m., because it’s still open and…
Select your currency
USD United States (US) dollar
EUR Euro