Like many other Egyptians, when Cairo Restaurant owner Magdy Hegad talks about khushari, his eyes glisten with an emotion akin to love – but when he talks about seafood, the glisten is elevated to something closer to religious fervor. “We do it differently,” he explains. “Just try it, and you will see.” We first ventured to Cairo Restaurant with an Egyptian friend eager to show us the delights of a cuisine we had learned little about, let alone tried. As we entered the restaurant, it became clear that this was to be a very different meal than what we had grown used to in dining around the city.

Back at Culinary Backstreets Istanbul headquarters in 2012, every once in a while a conversation would arise about how çiğ köfte had emerged as a sort of fast-food franchising opportunity, with young entrepreneurial types starting up these meat-free meatball joints in all sorts of Istanbul neighborhoods. We all agreed it was much cooler than opening a KFC or an Orange Julius in the food court (though the former has been making its mark across the shopping malls of Turkey for a while now), and we were happy to see the ambitious souls of Turkey setting their sights on the bulgur meatball stand instead. The bespoke lokma shops and waffle bars may come and go, but çiğ köfte has its forever fans of all generations – and a new clientele now that it has caught on to its vegan marketing potential.

Istanbul's Kurtuluş neighborhood is home to a number of slow-burners, establishments that may be hidden in plain view due to their plainness but that end up becoming some of our favorites. Gimmicks don’t fly in down-to-earth Kurtuluş, where neighborly ties are strong and home-cooked meals are preferred. Tucked on a side street in the middle of the quarter is a small eatery that exemplifies this tried-and-true character. Behind windows that fog up quickly in the winter sit a handful of tables facing an open kitchen in what might be Istanbul's coziest restaurant, Ben-u Sen, which showcases the divine ev yemekleri (home cooking) of the delightful Nuray Güzel.

In search of new adventures, we recently decided to venture to Beykoz, on the northern end of Istanbul’s Anatolian side, near where the Bosphorus meets the Black Sea. Getting there required an hour-long ferry ride – basically a mini Bosphorus cruise – from Üsküdar, and upon arrival we immediately felt catapulted out of the chaos into a green, peaceful haven. After a walk in the lush local park, Beykoz Korusu, we headed to the center, where an old lokanta opens onto a main square. “Kök Kardeşler Lokantası – Kuruluş 1935” (“Brothers Kök – since 1935”) read the restaurant’s sign. The simple but meaningful words were written in bright yellow decal on the window. Kök Kardeşler’s unpretentious apperance and the fact that it was a family-run business compelled us to stop inside and grab a quick lunch on what was an unusually cold spring day. “Hoş geldiniz,” Hamit, one of four Kök (the name means “roots” in Turkish) siblings who have been managing this little diner, said as we entered, showing an old-fashioned politeness that we now rarely see when eating at restaurants in more popular parts of town.

On the walls at Haritna Restaurant are homages to simple sights: a large gate, ancient Damascene windows – it’s a scene that hopes to inspire the very particular feeling of sitting in the middle of a Damascus square, down a well-trodden, old lane. For in Arabic, haritna means “our lane.” Also a colloquial term for neighborhood, Haritna evokes a sense of home for those now living far away. In fact, owner Loay Bakdash, originally from Damascus himself, had dreamed of opening such a restaurant while working as a civil engineer in Saudi Arabia. But he didn’t want it to be a place where people would just come and eat. “I wanted the customers to feel that they are in one of Damascus’ neighborhoods, among their acquaintances in a family-friendly atmosphere,” he says.

The first few blocks of Baruthane are lined with a smattering of restaurants, barbers, television repair shops and dry cleaners, though in recent years a flurry of third-wave coffee shops and bars has arrived on the street. While this is a positive development for the young adults that patronize these establishments, there is the inevitable concern that their proliferation will cause a spike in rents and tarnish the quaint character of this beloved neighborhood. It is for this reason that we were thrilled to see a new establishment open up on Baruthane that reflects the classic small-business character that makes this area so special. Köy Börek is run by Abdullah Kral, a cheerful 53-year-old teddy bear of a man who makes some of the most delicious börek we’ve ever had – and we’ve had a lot. (Kral means king in Turkish, and we are prepared to crown Abdullah bey the king of börek.)

We recently spoke with travel writer Caroline Eden about her culinary travelogue, Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes, Through Darkness and Light (Hardie Grant; May 2019). Eden has written for the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times, among other publications, and has filed stories from Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent. Eden is also co-author of Samarkand: Recipes & Stories from Central Asia & the Caucasus (Kyle Books; July 2016), a Guardian book of the year in 2016 and winner of the Guild of Food Writers Award for best food and travel book in 2017.

Like most Syrians who fled their war-ravaged country and made their way to Turkey, Fatma Jabal, a 19-year-old from Aleppo now living in Istanbul, had to get creative in order to make a living. With a baby boy to take care of and her husband struggling to provide for their family while working as a carpenter, Fatma tapped into something she’s been doing since she was a child: baking cakes and cookies. Making desserts had been something Fatma has loved from early on growing up in Aleppo, which she left in 2014 in the midst of the worsening conflict there. For her, each treat she bakes is a work of art that just happens to be edible. “The first thing I did in the kitchen was sweets,” she says. But Fatma realized she needed to develop her budding baking prowess to start charging customers.

Think of Ramadan, which just began in many parts of the world, as a kind of monthlong biathlon that consists of an all-day race to beat back the hunger and thirst of fasting, followed by an all-night marathon of eating and drinking in order to fortify the body for the next day’s fast. In recent years in Turkey, iftar, the traditional break fast meal that used to mostly consist of some dates and a freshly baked round of Ramadan pide, has started to become an increasingly trendy affair, with ministers, businessmen and regular people trying to make an impression by hosting ever more lavish meals.

The red storefront and Cyrillic lettering made it clear this was not just another kebab shop. Hesitant at first, we scouted around the outside – the restaurant is tucked into a side street, flanked by a shipping office and a construction site, and does not appear to exist on Google Maps. The menu, written in dry erase marker on a board hanging from the wall, was entirely in Mongolian. Nevertheless, armed with the names of a few traditional Mongolian dishes – khuushuur (a sort of meat-filled empanada), mantuun buuz (dumplings) and tsuivan (noodle stew) – gained from some cursory YouTube research, we sheepishly approached the counter. As we attempted to order, our host smiled. “I’ll make you something, don’t worry,” she assured us, and ran into the kitchen.

Surrounded by construction sites, Salı Pazarı – literally “Tuesday Market” – is a huge open-air bazaar in Kadıköy, a district on the Asian side. This sprawling market, held on Tuesdays and Fridays, is a snapshot of life in Istanbul: old ladies plow through crowds, their trolleys overflowing with groceries; vendors scream at the top of their lungs; and cars rocket down the highway along the front side of the market. In addition to being a litmus test of Turkey’s economic state and the general mood of the people, the market and the produce showcased on its stands reflect the changes in the seasons. In fact, as spring has been struggling to assert itself this year, only a few stands are stocked with the typical spring products on the sunny but cold April morning that we visit.

Down the street from Istanbul’s upmarket Etiler neighborhood and above the even-glitzier shoreside quarter of Bebek lies Hisarüstü, a ragtag maze of unplanned urban growth that happens to be adjacent to the newer campus of Bogaziçi University, Turkey’s most prestigious college. Once upon a time the area was home to a pig farm, but Hisarüstü became quickly built up as Anatolian migrants rapidly settled in Istanbul, not shying away from the area despite its location on an impossibly steep hill. Though Etiler and Bebek are among the city’s most prestigious areas, Hisarüstü doesn’t get much attention from outside visitors – if you don’t live in the neighborhood or attend Boğaziçi, you likely have no reason to go there.

The T1 tramway route passes by virtually all of Istanbul’s most well-known sights. Crossing the Galata Bridge and weaving through the Old City, the T1 practically rubs up against the Hagia Sophia, Topkapı Palace, the Grand Bazaar and other famous attractions, ensuring that most foreign visitors to the city will ride this tram within a five-stop radius. But after the T1 rumbles past the old city walls, it snakes its way northeast through a dense patch of working-class districts usually ignored by tourists. Dreary on the outside though they may look, many of these neighborhoods are laced with off-the-beaten-path charm and culinary delights hidden in plain view.

While home cooks preparing food for their families are revered and restaurants occupy an important place in the social fabric, food businesses run out of individual homes often carry negative connotations in Middle Eastern societies. Many would assume that the person making these meals is jobless, uneducated, in dire need of money, or some combination of the three. But sometimes major societal changes – like, for example, a war and resulting refugee crisis – shift perceptions, and something once viewed with skepticism becomes a path forward. That is increasingly the case for Syrians in Istanbul, who have been forced to flee from their homeland and take up residence in a country where they barely know the language, culture or people.

Istanbul’s Kadıköy district on the city’s Asian side has long been billed as a calmer, more laid-back alternative to some of its swarming, chaotic European counterparts, and it seems everyone’s figured that out by now. Though the rocks that straddle a long stretch of winding, serene shoreline still make for one of the most relaxing hangout places in the city, the pedestrian Mühürdar Caddesi running through the heart of Kadıköy is choked with foot traffic on the weekends, while a staggering number of bars and coffee shops have appeared on the scene within the past two to three years. In the district’s affluent, picturesque borough of Moda, where rents get higher as one approaches the Marmara Sea coast, these new establishments are rapidly altering the classic character of the neighborhood, as espresso bars replace tuhafiyeler (haberdasheries) and sahaflar (used bookstores) close down to make way for Irish pubs and burger joints.