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When a tiny three-table restaurant has but a single item on its nonexistent menu that it has served for nearly three quarters of a century, one steps in the door with high expectations and an enthusiastic appetite. These will be met and exceeded at Tarihi Odabaşı, a hole-in-the-wall in the heart of old Istanbul that has been making çiğ börek – a buoyant, lightly-fried pastry stuffed with ground beef that is a staple of Crimean Tatar cuisine – since 1950.

The restaurant gets its name from the nearby Has Odabaşı Behruz Ağa Mosque, built in the 16th century by doyen Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. It is located in the Çapa/Şehrimini neighborhood, which is inside the old city walls of Istanbul. Though it’s not too far from Istanbul’s most famous tourist attractions, it is a primarily residential area not visited by many tourists.

Originally nestled in the complex of the mosque itself, since 1985 Tarihi Odabaşı has been open in a shop just down the street. Zeki Aksoy has run the show for more than fifty years alongside his sons Özer and Mustafa, who have been working with their father since they were children. The original owners, like the Aksoys, were Crimean Tatars. A Turkic ethnic group exiled from their homeland of Crimea over the centuries by first the Czars and then, in the 1940s, by the USSR, many Tatars wound up in Turkey, particularly the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir, bringing their fried-dough specialties along with them.

For that reason, çiğ börek is synonymous with Eskişehir and among the city’s most famous dishes, served at numerous restaurants all over town. But the Aksoys claim that their shop in Istanbul predated all of these establishments, a pioneering effort during a time when rural-to-urban migration had just begun to kick off in Turkey and when traditional dishes like çiğ börek were primarily served at home. A young man seated at the corner table tucking into a hefty portion (five pieces) told us that he, as a Crimean Tatar from Eskişehir himself, would say that Tarihi Odabası in fact whips up the best çiğ börek.

We play it safe and ask for two. We receive piping hot pouches of crispy fried dough, laced but not overloaded with succulently savory ground beef simmered in a broth that drips out as you tuck in, just like a proper dumpling. The dish manages to be light yet rich in flavor, and though we had room for one more it would have been tough to take down an entire portion.

On our first visit last summer, the Aksoy brothers were deftly and quickly preparing the orders. Tarihi Odabaşı is open in the early afternoon and closes when the evening call to prayer begins to play. They open during the holy month of Ramadan, but only on the weekends after the iftar fast-breaking meal until sahur, the last time one can eat before resuming their fast for the day. On our most recent trip during Ramadan on a Saturday just after iftar, we were delighted to see Zeki, who is still at it even in his 70s. He vacations during the summer while his sons run the place year round.

When we ask for the secret behind proper çiğ börek, Özer emphasizes that the quality of meat, the dough and the workmanship are all important, declining to highlight one element. But then Mustafa points to a gargantuan cooking contraption that he claims is around two hundred years old.

“It’s a cast-iron cauldron. It heats up quickly, cools down slowly, and won’t burn oil,” Özer says. Watching the men at work is an image of pure artistry, total mastery of a relatively simple yet deeply delicious and specific delicacy. They make it look easy, but we doubt it is.

The kind of small business like Tarihi Odabaşı that is predicated upon decades of expertise on one item and one item only is going the way of the buffalo in Istanbul. Such establishments may cease to exist entirely within a matter of decades. The primary reason for this is perhaps the fact that men and women who have toiled for their entire lives behind counters and in kitchens are now steering their kids away from the trade and encouraging them to pursue higher education. The sons of the younger Aksoys have worked in the shop, but their fathers say it is up to them whether or not they will be the flag bearers of the family tradition. Though Zeki, Özer and Mustafa have shown no signs of slowing down, we nevertheless recommend heading over to Odabaşı for a serving of their wonderful çığ börek as soon as possible.

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Published on June 20, 2022

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