On a blustery, drizzly winter afternoon in Istanbul, Muhittin Öztürk swipes his cell phone until he finds the photo he’s looking for: three men clad in blue aprons, standing behind a grill inside a small fishing boat. “That one’s my father, that one’s my uncle,” Öztürk says, pointing at the image. “This is the culture I come from.” Now a 35-year veteran of the business, Öztürk is the owner of the Derya, one of three gaudily adorned neo-Ottoman-style vessels moored to the shoreline in Eminönü, where a crew of cooks and waiters serve up fish sandwiches – balık ekmek (literally, “fish bread”) in Turkish – at a rapid pace to heaving crowds, most of whom are tourists.

The balık ekmek (fish sandwich or, more literally, fish and bread) – an Istanbul street food staple – has lived and died and been born again along any walkable stretch of the Bosphorus. Whether you’re in the habit of buying it from the neon-lit boats docked at Eminönü’s pier (which, to the chagrin of some and the delight of others, had their leases revoked by the municipality on November 1) or from a street cart illuminated by a jaundiced bare bulb, one thing’s for certain: there’s a better option out there. That would be the balık dürüm (fish wrap) – the fish sandwich’s tastier, spicier and genuinely sexier cousin. In an ever-developing city where centuries-old institutions are taking their final breaths, there is much change to lament. But the introduction of the balık dürüm is one change we welcome with open arms and mouths.