Before we cross the Bosphorus Strait to Asia, this story starts on Istanbul’s European side, at a small stand that has been operating in Beyoğlu since the mid-1970s. There, Muammer usta serves up expertly-cooked and sliced cuts of kelle söğüş (chilled lamb's head meat), perched in a strategic location across from the local fish market and a stone's throw from the Nevizade strip of meyhanes and bars. Over the decades, Muammer usta has become one of the most recognizable characters in the area. The usta’s influence cannot be overstated. His stand is beloved by locals, foreign tourists from across the globe and food critics alike.

In Turkey, talk of çiğ börek, invariably leads to a mention of Eskişehir. A small Anatolian city famous for its vibrant student life and the historic Ottoman-style houses in the old town of Odunpazarı, Eskişehir is famous for these fried half-moon meat-filled pastries. They came to the city along with the Crimean Tatar community who migrated to Anatolia by way of the Caucasus from the 18th to 20th centuries, fleeing the expansion of the Russian Empire and anti-Muslim persecution. Today you can munch on these fried treats alongside a glass of homemade ayran in historic Odunpazari, though few other trappings of the Tatar community remain visible.

Turkey’s rich regional food culture reflects its diverse landscapes: seafood, olive oil and wild greens along the Aegean Sea; wheat- and meat-heavy dishes in the country’s heartland; corn, collards and anchovies on the rugged Black Sea coast. But with climate change altering the environments that produced those ingredients, what will happen to the dishes they inspired? Will the way people in Turkey eat have to change too? And if so, how? Those are the kinds of questions posed by CLIMAVORE: Seasons Made to Drift, a thought-provoking exhibition on display at Istanbul’s SALT Beyoğlu cultural center on İstiklal Caddesi until August 22.

Izmir’s quintessential sandwich, the kumru (the Turkish word for turtle dove), derives its name from the birdlike shape of the elegant, curved roll in which it is served. Throughout the Aegean coastal city, there are two varieties of this ubiquitous sandwich: One is served fresh from a cart with a slice of local tulum peynir (sharp white sheep’s cheese), tomatoes and optional green pepper. The other version is a greasy, salty and downright decadent configuration of grilled sucuk, salami, thinly sliced hot dog strips, two types of cheese, pickles, tomatoes and occasionally ketchup and mayo, dwarfing its humble predecessor. While the simpler kumru dates back to the mid-19th century, it was in the 1940s that sandwich shops started grilling them up with sausage and melted cheese.

Editor’s note: To celebrate Ramazan Bayramı, also called Şeker Bayramı, the three-day holiday at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, we are republishing this 2014 article about our favorite spots for baklava – sweets are an integral part of the festivities, which began on May 13 this year. Turkey’s European Union membership bid may be stuck in the mud, but a different dynamic is at work on the food front. To wit: the European Commission has granted Gaziantep baklava a spot on its list of protected designations of origin and geographical indications. It’s the first Turkish product and the 16th non-EU food to make it on the list. In honor of this much-deserved recognition, we’ve put together our own list of favorite places to get baklava in Istanbul and Gaziantep.

Encompassing the entirety of the old city and all of its historic glory, Istanbul’s Fatih district is home to a large population of Syrians, who settled in certain neighborhoods following the outbreak of civil war in that country. Yusufpaşa is one such place, and so is the area around Akşemsettin Street, which is lined with a variety of shops and restaurants run by Syrians. Aksaray is another, with the working-class neighborhood now full of signs advertising “Syrian shwarma” and “Aleppo cuisine,” spelled out in Turkish and also in the curly, coiled letters of Arabic. Restaurants serving displaced Syrians familiar dishes like fatteh and muhammara now dominate the main boulevard.

The holy month of Ramadan has arrived, and along with it Istanbul has been blessed with beautiful spring weather. Normally, people throughout the city would be gathering in groups large and small in the evening to enjoy their fast-breaking iftar, but these days are anything but normal. Surging Covid-19 figures, which recently eclipsed 60,000 a day in Turkey, have resulted in tightened measures geared toward curbing the pandemic (in fact, it was announced yesterday that the country will be under a total lockdown from April 29 until May 17). These have included the closure of restaurants and cafés for dining service and stricter curfews, which begin at 7 p.m. during the week.

Every year, for one month only, bakeries across Istanbul churn out round, flat, yeasty loaves of Ramazan pidesi, a Turkish flatbread. Before Muslims break their fast at sundown, they hurry to buy these addictively chewy pides, which are essential to the iftar meal here. Some bakeries rely on machines to shape the pide and stamp the traditional checkerboard pattern on top; others do it the old-fashioned way, by hand in wood-fired ovens. Tophane Tarihi Taş Fırın is a third-generation, family-run bakery that is known for its simit, the sesame-crusted bagel sold on every corner in Istanbul. They also make excellent Ramazan pide in their 130-year-old wood oven. Two easygoing Eryılmaz brothers run the shop, while additional family members head up many other bakeries in the area.

Beer is one of the last things that comes to mind when thinking about the Istanbul suburb of Başakşehir, a large district known as one of the city’s conservative heartlands. Tellingly, it’s also home to Başakşehirspor, the unofficial football team of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Yet tucked in a sprawling industrial complex of Başakşehir is the headquarters of Istanbul’s best microbrewery, 3 Kafadar, which translates to “three buddies.” The name is rooted in the longtime friendship of the three owners, Hakan Özkan, Harun Aydın and Tarık Apak. Their interest in brewing was sparked by a trip to Oktoberfest in 2013. It was Özkan and Aydın’s first time, and the place was so packed that they had a hard time securing a place to sit and drink.

“A proper Rum house has to have everything,” a venerable chef once told me in Greek, the language that we have proudly spoken within our Istanbul community for more than 2,000 years. “Spoon sweets, lakerda, pickles, liqueurs…” He then puckered his grey mustache and switched into Turkish: “Olmazsa olmaz,” which is best translated by the Latin phrase sine qua non. Many of these essential culinary preparations appear in my novel, A Recipe for Daphne, which is both a love story and a meditation on the past and future of the community. But just who are the Istanbul Rums? The thoughts of my novel’s main character, Fanis, explain the term best.

Located near the end of Akşemsettin Street in Istanbul’s Fatih district is a small yogurt shop that radiates history. Barbaros Yoğurtçusu has been around since Kemal Kurap’s grandfather Abbas came to Istanbul from Albania at the dawn of the 20th century and established the business in 1918. The current location in Fatih was opened in 1946, but the brand’s name comes from its original locale at the Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa ferry pier in the district of Besiktaş, named for the legendary Ottoman naval commander. Like the owners of other classic dairy shops in the city, the Kurap family belongs to a rich tradition of Balkan dairy producers that made their way to Istanbul in the latter years of the Ottoman Empire.

Müşterek’s Mezes on the Move Müşterek has been my favorite meyhane for quite some time, but I’ve been less than vocal about this in public. During its heyday, it could be tough to get a table in the cozy space even on a weekday, so I preferred to keep mum about this beloved spot on Beyoğlu’s Mis Sokak for fear of it becoming overhyped and overcrowded. Such concerns are now a remnant of what seems to be a distant past, as Müşterek has been closed for months due to licensing issues – a result of government-imposed pandemic precautions in Turkey that many have criticized as arbitrary.

With December about to lift its wintry head and amble into Istanbul on the heels of a rainy November, there’s no cure for chilly weather and pandemic brain quite like the classic, cozy offerings at any beloved esnaf lokantası (tradesman’s restaurant). From sautéed beef over roasted eggplant purée to white beans in tomato sauce to moussaka and stuffed peppers, there’s a reason the most established of these establishments have a steady stream of loyal customers: reliably good food at a reliably good price. The esnaf lokantası is the bread and butter of Turkish dining, and any worthy Istanbullu will know their neighborhood’s favorite haunt. The problem with Beşiktaş, a formerly working-class district that has become a hub for Istanbul’s student life, is that scores of longstanding eateries have been shuttered.

There’s a Vedic-era (c. 1,000 BC) quote that underlies much of contemporary Indian hospitality: “Atithi Devo Bhava.” This roughly translates to “the guest is equivalent to God,” which is exactly the sense we get when we sit down for dinner at one of the curbside tables at Fusion Indian Restaurant, perched on the edge of Kumkapı Meydanı. Located a short walk downhill from Beyazit and just around the corner from the well-lit, tourist-trawling meyhanes crowding around the square, here we are greeted by servers with smiles on their faces and a menu boasting options to be found in few other places in Istanbul. The sky above shifts from blue to pink as the sun begins to set. The conversations of our fellow diners mingle with the sounds of the city, a convivial polyglot hubbub.

It was a cool, balmy evening in the center of Istanbul’s Şişli district, and summer was on the verge of slipping into fall. If you were sitting down outside, you could enjoy the calm, gentle breeze, but you’d break out in sweat the minute you started walking, thanks to the thick layer of humidity. We opened a bottle of shiraz on a small back patio where a smattering of trees and bushes offered respite from the dense, urban maze and the skyscrapers that dominated its horizon just a stone’s throw away. This 2015 shiraz was bottled in the northwest province of Tekirdağ in Thrace, one of Turkey’s top wine regions. At 50 TL a bottle, we expected a competent, drinkable red, only to be blown away at first sip by the wine’s lively personality.