The main street that flanks the Gayrettepe metro station in central Istanbul is lined with a number of imposing skyscrapers that increase in frequency as the avenue progresses towards the frenetic Mecidiyeköy district, a stretch of urban chaos that has a Gotham City vibe, particularly when it’s rainy, cold and dark outside. But heading into the backstreets of Gayrettepe reveals a calm, classic Istanbul neighborhood with a number of hidden gems.
Among these is Oklava, a four-table pasta restaurant located inside an aging building complex. The menu changes daily and there are about half a dozen items on it, featuring fresh, handmade pasta prepared with high-quality hand-picked ingredients. Before discovering the restaurant, Gayrettepe was synonymous with the Department of Immigration and the local tax office, where we paid our residence permit fees, but now we have a less stressful reason to visit the area.
Oklava’s owner, 33-year-old Özge Çeltük, worked as an insurance consultant for five years before getting out of the white-collar corporate world and going to cooking school. She worked at a number of restaurants including Nicole, one of Istanbul’s most acclaimed fine dining spots, and the local outpost of Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, this one set in a lofty rooftop venue.
A lover of both eating and making pasta, Çeltük decided to follow that passion and start her own place. Oklava opened toward the end of 2021, a difficult period when Turkey was still knee-deep in the Covid-19 pandemic. Her hard work eventually paid off, and the restaurant now has a consistent following. On our first visit, it was a busy Friday, the weather was nicer and the two outdoor tables were occupied. We sat at the corner table inside and ordered the pappardelle with cream sauce, portobello and oyster mushrooms. The sauce was flavorful but not heavy or overpowering in the slightest, while the noodles gloriously soaked it up. The mushrooms were marvelously meaty in flavor and texture. It was a dish that made us think (briefly) about being vegetarian.
The districts of Kadıköy and Beşiktaş have exploded in popularity within the past decade, and hundreds of new establishments have predictably popped up. While Gayrettepe is technically located in the latter, its vibe is much different than the raucous heart of Beşiktaş, which is packed with bars, coffee shops, meyhanes, restaurants and football hooligans supporting the district’s beloved team of the same name. For Çeltük, there was no interest in opening up anywhere outside of her neighborhood, no matter how popular things might be elsewhere.
“I live in Gayrettepe myself and love it very much. The people here are very sweet. It is a place where neighborhood culture still exists,” she says. The entrance to a housing complex is right next door to Oklava, and it is clear that the people coming and going have lived there for years, perhaps decades.
On our next visit, we ordered fettuccine with Bolognese sauce topped with a dash of parmesan. The pasta was perfectly al dente and the sauce had the most delicate, balanced flavor profile that squashed our proclivity to add black pepper or something spicy. Satisfied but still curious, we requested a plate of burrata, served alongside red and orange cherry tomatoes in a vinaigrette-style sauce made with pure pomegranate syrup that Çeltük purchases directly from producers in the southeastern province of Urfa. The cheese was delightfully creamy, and as we sliced into it the dish took on an exquisite shade of pink as the tomatoes and sauce mingled with the burrata.
While Oklava’s recipes are all based on classic Italian (with some local touches), pasta is not an unfamiliar ingredient in Istanbul. There are cheap pasta joints all over the city, and dishes such as fırın makarna (oven-baked noodles with Béchamel sauce) are served at the most classic cafeterias nationwide. Needless to say, opening a small restaurant where the prices for pasta dishes are on the high side was a risky endeavor.
“The thing that was the most difficult for us in the beginning was that Turkish people had this perception of ‘who pays that much money to go out for pasta?’ Secondly, people compare it with store-bought pasta. In this country, the cheapest thing at the market is pasta,” Çeltük says.
But cheap, store-bought pasta is certainly not on the menu. She and her partner, Sinan, come to the shop every morning at nine and start rolling out the dough for their handmade pasta, and they are ready by noon to start service. Sometimes the pasta sells out early, and the pair will prepare another batch for the evening. They do not deliver, as Çeltük believes that fresh pasta does not do well on the road. That’s fine by us – we’re more than happy to venture out again to Gayrettepe to have what might be the best pasta in Istanbul.
Published on May 15, 2024
Related stories
April 11, 2024
OaxacaAs difficult as the last two years have been for food businesses, it has offered many establishments an opportunity to rethink how they do things and come back with a greater sense of purpose. Take the example of Oaxaca’s Oscuro Brebaje, a café that took a pause, only to emerge stronger and more inviting. Founded…
March 6, 2024
IstanbulThe fourth time was the charm when we finally were able to take a seat at Salepepe, a five-stool pizza bar in the exceedingly hip neighborhood of Yeldeğirmeni, located in Istanbul's Kadıköy district on the Anatolian side of the city. When we first went, the restaurant was closed due to selling out early, while the…
December 6, 2023
IstanbulErgenekon Avenue, the busy, one-way street that separates the Istanbul quarters of Kurtuluş and Pangaltı, is particularly bustling at the Osmanbey metro exit. For years now, the heavy foot traffic has outgrown its narrow sidewalks, peaking into an insurmountable throng at evening rush hour. On one side is an expansive walled Levantine Catholic cemetery, while…
