A True Insider’s Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Staying in Istanbul

"The country’s only two-Michelin-starred restaurant is the realization of chef Fatih Tutak’s global-to-local vision: an Istanbul native who spent 16 years working in Asia — including at Tokyo’s RyuGin and a stage at Noma in Copenhagen — he recounts how at his Bangkok restaurant, The House on Sathorn, he once put his mom’s mantı on an elaborate haute tasting menu. “Our humble dish was everyone’s favorite,” he declares, “reminding me that I was a Turkish chef and that it was time to return home, to use my worldwide experience to reinterpret our Anatolian flavors.” Opened in 2019 in Bomonti as a warm, blond-wood 30-seat space, the theatrical 13-course tasting menu begins with clever trompe-l’oeil stuffed mussels — edible “shells” wrought from caramelized onions and squid ink — and may follow with Aegean tuna atop smoked eggplant accented with vine-leaf dashi, ending with talismanic mantı filled with aged Turkish Wagyu and broth that squirts into the mouth like xiao long bao, presented on smoked yogurt infused with umami-rich beef garum." - Anya von Bremzen