Call ahead by a couple days and Serdil will arrange a deep dive on Diyarbakır dishes you can't experience anywhere else, not in the city, not in the region, not anywhere else in the country. On our last visit in September, he started the meal with a local caprese made from lavaş peyniri (a flat, mild sheep's milk cheese), reyhan (purple basil, which grows all over the countryside), and tırnak ekmek (handmade bread from a local baker, first popularized in nearby Gaziantep). He presents his dish, and those after, with a story of how it came to be and where the ingredients are from. More bread was served with a bright green salt Serdil had made from a rare Kurdish herb he called "zuzak," explaining just how difficult it has become to track down. It was tangy and slightly sweet, and no one from either of our dining groups (eight in total, we were at capacity), had ever heard of it before.

Diners in Istanbul are spoiled with options for fresh seafood. But most venues are mere caricatures of places like İsmet Baba, where traditions have been kept sacred for more than 50 years. While many other such restaurants are kitschy, İsmet is gritty and authentic. Located in Kuzguncuk, a charming neighborhood on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, it may not be the best restaurant in the city, but it’s got something most of the others have lost: old-school Istanbul charm and character.

We recently spoke to food historian and researcher Priscilla Mary Işın about her new book, “Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine” (Reaktion Books; May 2018). She has previously published edited transcriptions of texts relating to Ottoman food culture and “Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts” (2008), a social history of Ottoman sweets and puddings.