The story starts with two successful business executives, dreaming of a drastic change in their lives. They turn to what they love, eating, and find a gaping hole in Istanbul’s restaurant scene. Until just a few years ago, you’d know where this story was heading – a research trip to Naples or Bangkok, followed by the opening of a limp pasta restaurant in the environs of İstinye Park or some other upscale shopping mall. But not this time. The heroes of our story set their sights on the city of Izmir and its offal-laden cuisine. Izmir folk love kelle söğüş (boiled sheep’s head, served cold) and kelle tandır (a roasted version). While in Istanbul these specialties are largely a novelty, in the busy downtown markets of Izmir you’re more likely to come across kelle than kebab. Your friends from Izmir will never post a photo of a sheep’s head on their Facebook page with a freaked-out-looking emoticon because, to them, tucking into a sheep’s head lunch is just everyday business as usual. And, in Istanbul, it seems, the Izmir way of lunch could be catching on.

With all the talk about the benefits of quinoa, chia seeds, goji berries and similar superfoods, we can’t help but be a little taken aback when Dolors, one of the owners of the restaurant Can Vilaró, explains the benefits of eating cap i pota, a traditional Catalan stew made with calf’s head and leg and chickpeas. According to her, the gelatinous chunks of meat make the skin glow and fight wrinkles. “It works as well as the most expensive collagen facial cream available at stores,” she says with a cheeky smile.

Finding a kebab restaurant in Istanbul is not hard. There must be thousands of them. But finding the right kind of place, especially if you want to make it a bit more of a meal, can be surprisingly difficult. Most kebab joints tend to be no-frills, in-and-out places. Some are very good (and we will review a few in the future), but they don't make for a night out. On the other hand, some of nicer places – where you can find a more extensive menu and, more importantly, drink booze with your dinner – take things too far. Tuxedoed waiters serving kebab? Griller, please! At the end of the day, we're still talking about meat on a stick cooked over a fire.

Forget about Christmas. In Greece, Easter is the main event, one where food, naturally, plays a starring role. It is also very much a holiday celebrated in the countryside: most Athenians go back to their villages during the holiday to be with their extended family and enjoy the Easter-related culinary delights of their home region.

Though it may seem bewildering or even exotic to outsiders, Istanbul’s commercial life is actually organized according to a very old, guildlike system that assigns different neighborhoods to the sale and sometimes manufacture of different types of products. If you bottom out in a pothole and need a rot balans, you head up to the Oto Sanayi area. For kitchen and bathroom accessories, the Çağlayan neighborhood is the answer. And when Istanbulites hanker for grilled sweetbreads, or uykuluk, the only suitable place to go is Sütlüce, down where the slaughterhouses used to operate on the Golden Horn.