Perhaps the most glorious and satisfying aspect about calling Istanbul home is the infinite potential for discovery. Even on streets we’ve wandered down hundreds or thousands of times, we still find ourselves noticing small details, like a hand-painted apartment sign; a grand, winding staircase at the entrance of an old building; or the fading blue address numbers that were replaced years ago but can still be spotted here and there in Istanbul’s older, central neighborhoods. What took us aback recently was the discovery of a restaurant on a main avenue that passes through the edges of Pangaltı, Kurtuluş, Bomonti and Feriköy – a small büfe hidden in plain sight, open for over 40 years but with no social media presence or even (until recently), a single Google review.
It is fairly common for an esnaf lokantası (tradesman’s restaurant) to offer döner, but much less so for a büfe – a small kiosk that specializes in döner and pressed sandwiches – to also offer a rotating daily menu of home-cooked dishes. It is even less common for a büfe to specialize in chicken döner that knocks one’s socks off. Some of the best lamb and beef döner can be found at büfes across Istanbul, made with fresh, carefully selected cuts and marinated for hours before being loaded onto the spit and sliced to perfection. These places usually do not offer chicken döner, and establishments that offer both usually (but not always) have mediocre versions of each. Chicken döner can often be dry and over-charred, or loaded with dollops of garlic mayonnaise and a red sauce made from pepper and tomato paste that overpowers the chicken’s flavor (or lack thereof).
This is not the case at Uğur Büfe, where the döner is equally juicy and crispy, tasting more like a succulent rotisserie chicken. It is served as a wrap, a sandwich, or on a plate atop buttery rice alongside slices of tomatoes, lettuce, and onions, and topped with oregano and red pepper flakes. Ahmet usta mans the spit, and we ask him what the secret is. “The most important [aspect] is the brine. The balance of breast and thigh meat is also important,” Ahmet usta replies simply. But taking a closer look at the döner reveals more: the pleasant orange hue means it has been treated with a spice rub or marinade, and Ahmet usta has expertly shaped the the hand-cut filets as uniformly as puzzle pieces, resulting in the sculpted döner resembling a hulking, cylindrical Jenga tower.
Uğur Büfe is a family-run operation. Ahmet usta is a relative of Mehmet and Engin Ateş, who hail from the Black Sea province of Rize and opened the place in 1983. Among its most notable features are the extremely reasonable prices. “We’ve been doing it this way since the old days. Other places might sell a half loaf of bread with döner for 80 or 90 liras but we can’t [raise prices] because we have long-standing customers; it wouldn’t work,” Mehmet Ateş explained. At 76 years old, with short-cropped grey hair and thin-rimmed spectacles, Ateş looks younger than his age and plans to keep on going, offering prices as low as possible while not skimping on quality – something that is admirable amid an ongoing economic crisis characterized by perpetually climbing inflation and weakened purchasing power. The country needs places like this the most during these challenging times.
And then there are the daily specials. During the first 15 years in business, the Ateş brothers and company only sold döner, pressed sandwiches, and soft drinks, but one day a cook prepared a batch of kuru fasulye, a bean stew simmering in tomato sauce that ranks among the simplest yet heartiest and most beloved staples of Turkish home cooking. Everyone who tried it liked it, and the menu was expanded to offer different options every day, including classics like mercimek çorbası, yellow lentil soup that is the most ubiquitous of its kind in this country, and terbiyeli köfte, a stew of miniature meatballs swimming in a sauce that is slightly tangy and creamy due to its base of yogurt and lemon juice.
We enjoyed sipping the former before a plate of döner on our initial visit, and reveled in the latter the next time we came in. Armed with a formidable appetite, we cleaned our plate of the terbiyeli köfte, and ordered a portion and a half of döner, washing it down with a glass of homemade lemonade. This set us back a mere 250 TL (US $7). On our third visit in the same week, we opted for ƒırın köfte, discs of spiced ground beef that sizzle in the oven before being bathed in red sauce and chunks of soft, savory boiled yellow potatoes. Like everything else at Uğur Büfe it is hearty and delicious, affordable, and prepared with sincere care.
Most of the customers at Uğur Büfe are neighborhood locals, shopkeepers, and workers who slip in for a quick, tasty meal that will fuel their day without draining their wallet. The high standard of quality, attention to detail, and insistence on adhering to incomparably low prices has made this hidden gem a quick favorite (even if it took us a decade to find it in our own neighborhood) and a keen reminder to always keep our eyes and noses open.
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