Cafe Istanbul

Cozy place, romantic. Delicious coffee + baklava. The staff is polite and attentive, sociable. One minus, a large percentage of tips. Overall, I recommend.

Sophia is the best server! She recommended great options and those were so delicious. Me and my friend weren’t so starving to try everything but definitely will come back soon!

My waiter was so considerate. I just got coffee so no food reviews sorry. I sat outside Sunday morning around 10:15 and it wasn't too busy. I got a little treat with my Turkish coffee.

I have been going to this restaurant for a couple years now. The previous menu was way better with good food portions and quality. They changed everything an started to serve smaller portions with a taste not as good as the last one. Really disappointed. The waitress charged us the tip without our consent and tried to argue about it. Avoid this place and save your money. Go somewhere else. Very disappointed with the service, food, quality & attitude towards a customer. This is my experience. The service and the food quality can be better.

Original post 2023 - Not only is the food delicious and fairly authentic, but the staff is amazing, personable, attentive, and kind. On this last visit there was no outside seating due to the rain (which is where I usual prefer to sit), but the inside was perfectly good as well. If you're in the area, I definitely recommend this restaurant for a good, hearty meal. Update March 2025: I continue to go here (6yrs now) whenever I'm in the area. The food continues to be great. On this last visit I had the labne (Silky cheese dip crowned with olive oil, mint, and olives.), the döner beyti (Beef or Chicken Döner in lavash, with cheese, herbs, and Mediterranean sauce, served with yogurt.), the künefe (Cheese arranged between two layers of Kadayıf (shredded phyllo), cooked until golden, and soaked in a sweet syrup.), and traditional Turkish tea. It was all great! Reminds me of my trips to Turkey which is great nostalgia. Highly recommend you stop by and enjoy their food and service, and support a long-standing local business.

Excellent food! Mouthwatering taste. Authentic Turkish food. We had beef bowl, gyro wrap & Turkish Kabab roll. The portion served was more than enough. Menu offers variety of options to choose from. Affordable pricing and foods are all Halal. The interior of the dining area is well decorated and kept very simple. I would highly recommend this place. All the staffs are very friendly &. Welcoming.

Beyti kebab was excellent and scrumptious. Fıstık sarma was excellent as well. Künefe was not good, baked twice or burnt, dunno.

This is my second visit and I love it every time I have been here. Service has been great food. Finding parking is a breeze the place is clean great location. Our server, Kevin was very friendly, polite and attentive, even even packed our food to go places they give you the boxes to pack your own food. I appreciate them going the extra mile.

Love Coffee, as Coffee Snob like Turkish with an awesome dessert!! Service is great friendly staff, they explain everything for beginners. Family, date, friends ambiance - Excellent

We didn't have a great experience during our first visit to Cafe Istanbul. Several employees were gathered at a large table next to us with their friends/family and were extremely loud, to the point we couldn't carry on a normal conversation. We had to flag them down when we needed something and to get the check. The fattoush salad was pretty good, but the rest of the food was just average. Parking is metered on the street and we didn't have trouble finding a space during lunchtime when we arrived.

Both food and service can be improved, had Istanbul coffee and kebab, the coffee was interesting in a good way, first time to try it, the small bite comes with coffee was good. Kebab was a bit oily and nothing special. The server didn't come back to check on us till almost the end.

The food is excellent! Lots of vegetarian options, including a good hearty lentil soup. Save some room for a dessert of kunefe! The Turkish coffee is really good and I like the traditional fancy serving style. In general I felt like they really care about aesthetics here, except when it came to music. They had a playlist of pop music from 20 years ago, which was fun, but it would have been so much cooler to hear Turkish music. Why not lean in to the vibe? Ignore the yelp offer of $10 off, it's not real (the employees here don't accept it). Restrooms are clean.

This restaurant is one of my frequent go-to places, both for takeout for myself and as a pleasant neighborhood restaurant to treat family and friends. Today I decided to treat myself to a shrimp bowl for takeout. I took it home, opened the carton, scooped out the contents onto a plate, and discovered a mountain of excellently seasoned rice and vegetables, but not one piece of shrimp. I guess that from now on, I'll have to stick to one of the multitude of other restaurants nearby.

The service was commendable, but the portions were disappointingly small and did not justify the high price. We spent over $100 on breakfast, which seemed excessive. Regrettably, we won't be returning. The owner should be ashamed of himself/herself for charging costumers this much for low quality food

This is one of the best kept secrets in Beverly Hills! Food is amazing and price is also very good for Beverly Hills!

Great authentic Turkish food!! We had the fried chicken, the combo kebab late and the shawarma. Also had the mint lemonade. Service was quick too.

Very small portions yet extremely overpriced. The food had chemical taste and served cold. Don't make me start talking about the waitresses. As long as this place has the rude and disrespectful waitresses with ugly attitude this place will get worse reviews. Just a disgrace to Istanbul and Turkish food.

Disappointed. The coffee tasted burnt, the bread was stale, and the service was painfully slow despite the place being nearly empty. To top it off, the staff seemed indifferent and borderline rude. Won't be coming back.

My family and I went to eat breakfast there and it was amazing. The staff was friendly. The food was great. The place was gorgeous Can't wait to go back.

I wish I had read some of the reviews before I went to this place. First of all the employees were extremely rude and disrespectful with terrible customer service. The food had no taste at all and absolutely not a Turkish food. Overpriced, and make sure check your recipe because they charge you extra for nothing. Stay away from this place. I would not recommend this place.

Want to start off by saying the service was great -- everyone was very friendly and checked on our table throughout our time there. The menu has lots of choices -- I'm pretty sure the entire menu is Halal! I ordered the beef bowl. The beef and rice were good but the sauce mix on top didn't have a catchy taste -- tasted almost like tomato sauce with peppers and nothing much.

If you're looking for solid Turkish food (which is very hard to come by in LA), this restaurant is a very good option! FOOD: MANTI (5/5): DEFINITELY order this!!! (they are mini Turkish "dumplings" filled with ground beef and topped with yogurt and tomato sauce). I'm Turkish and this manti tastes just like my grandma's :') the dough was the perfect texture (not too soft), the filling had great flavor, and the tomato sauce on top was DELICIOUS. I could've eaten a tub of it alone. Iskender kebab (4.5/5): very good! This is a very difficult dish to perfect because the original in Turkey is indescribably amazing. At Cafe Istanbul, the flavor alone was really good and captured the classic buttery, tomato-y aromas that make iskender kebab so special. My only complaints are that the meat could've been more thinly sliced to be more like the original iskender. And the pide bread was already very soft/mushy from all the juices when usually it should have some structure at the beginning and slowly soak up all the sauce. It still tasted amazing!! And satisfies the craving. Adana kebab (4/5): amazing flavor but the meat was kind of dry. The pilaf was really good! Choban salad (3.5/5): very good, fresh vegetables with nice crunch. It really needed extra salt though! Dolma/grape leaves (2/5): sadly these were so disappointing. Really flavorless and the filling was mushy. The service was excellent, and the place is very quaint with a peaceful ambiance! Overall, I don't really understand why this restaurant doesn't have the best reviews. I think the food is decent (some definite standouts!) and it's great to know there's a Turkish restaurant I can go to in LA. I will be back to try other menu items!

A little pricey but worth it! Food is fresh and meats are tender! Ambiance is classy and service is outstanding! I loved their dessert side that came with my Turkish coffee. Definitely recommended.

Ordered the vegetarian plate. Delicious! Great dolmas, tabbouleh, baba ganoush and hummus. They always treat me like family here.

So my friend was craving some Turkish coffee and after going to Mosaic church in Hollywood, we looked for a place and found this on yelp. The food looked good on the pics! (Check mine out too! ) We parked on the street and came in. We were seated immediately and they came and took our orders. Great service! Friendly smiles. My friend ordered the chicken shawarma plate and I got the lamb chop plate. (It was flavored so well and I have to take half home.) The lentil soup is free for January! We finished that first and let me tell you... I want more! I want to learn to make it and eat that everyday! You can squeeze lemon in it or eat it without the lemon juice. (Turkish people love lemon juice! I dated one. ) Anyway, we got so full but had to finish it off with some Turkish coffee. (Yay!) Thank you, Eric, for treating me out! Thank you, ladies, for the great service! Will be back for sure!

Visited LA quickly to handle some errands and we thought, Why not try some Turkish food nearby? Cafe Istanbul came up and we showed up at 10:00 am. I was impressed with the menu as it had a decorated selection and many authentic choices from Turkey. Let me tell you that the breakfast sucuk was absolutely delicious, flavorful at every bite. It was as if you were eating the sucuk in Izmir, Turkey. My Turkish father was impressed and so was I. We also ordered the traditional breakfast platter and the Turkish Wrap with Adana kebab. It really took me back to my traveling days visiting my family. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone who would like to eat authentic Turkish cuisine. Special mention to the waitress who was super nice to my father and I and provided excellent customer service. I will 1000% return to Cafe Istanbul during my next trip to Los Angeles, CA.

A little on the pricier side but the food is delicious! The server was very friendly, attentive and knew what she was doing! I very much recommend going in if you're nearby!

We have come here twice and both times, the food was excellent and service superb. We had the fatoush salad both times, it's one of the best fatoush salads I've tried. The first time I had the gyro wrap and this evening I had the beef doner bowl. I liked both , but the beef bowl was much tastier. Service provided by (Hanna) was top notch. Entire staff was friendly and attentive!!

Third time coming back, hoping the waitresses would have better service but failed to do so. Last three times we have been here the waitresses just stand by the bar area and talk and talk and talk to each other without checking on their customers. Then when I refused to tip, one of the girls got pissed turned around and walked away when I tried explaining why. Unfortunately, we never come back here.

It is overpriced but quite good. I love their brunches with Gozleme, the Kunefe, their lentil soup, cheese pie and Karniyarik ( eggplant)

Ridiculously overpriced tiny portioned very mediocre quality food. Ordered from DoorDash from here because was craving some Muhammara which was in their menu it was $18 for a single order so figured it would be a large sharing portion but it was tiny! Took a pic with my hand to show how much $18 of is. Also ordered a fatoush salad and a mixed kebab plate and baklava and the order came out to $120! For one entree, one salad, a dip and a baklava. Insane! The food arrived and the $18 salad was already dressed and soggy, they give you two pieces of baklava for $10 and the kebab plate had three sad pieces of meat on a huge bed of rice. The beef kabob had an old not fresh beef flavor and the chicken was dry. Also barely any pita included despite having hummus and two orders of muhammara. Literally the worst meal I've had in a long time. There is so much good Mediterranean/middle eastern food in town. Not sure how this place stays in business.

I like to try new places for lunch when i can and Cafe Istanbul didn't disappoint! The restaurant is nice, and clean. Always drive by and i never gave it a shot so i came by and i loved it. I had the fresh mint lemonade and it was very pleasant, a little different than what i was expecting but in a good way. I then had the lentil soup and it was served with pita bread, also good. For my main course i had the Doner Beyti made with the beef shwarma and i was just shocked with the explosion of flavors in this dish very well balanced dish, The beef is cooked well and not dry at all. Our waiter and his co worker were extremely helpful and attentive. Wasn't too sure what to order and he was very patient and helpful in helping me what to choose. Will be back soon.

Please make the soup daily. We can tell when it's a week old. That's basically all that needs to be improved.

Our 3rd time here. We all love the food so much here.. The service is top notch! I highly recommend this place.

This place was amazing, cozy restaurant, perfect for a date night. The food was delicious and the service was top-notch.

I was with my family today .The service was absolutely terrible.I don't recommend this restaurant !!!

Went here today after visiting Turkish Consulate. Setting is very pleasant, wait staff friendly, but the food was overpriced and not very good. It was definitely not authentic Turkish food. Extremely disappointing experience. I would not recommend dinning here.

Very small portion and very expensive.... The food was ok , but so small portions for 35 dollars?!! I will not recommend this place or come back ever.

Parking is metered and very scarce. Especially on weekday work hours. Also you got to read the parking signs for the hours. Staff is very friendly. I ended up ordering the manti. This is raviolis Turkish style. This includes minced meat, with a heaping full of yogurt on top with paprika butter sauce. Absolutely delicious meal. Highly recommend.

I always see this restaurant on Beverly & decided to give it a try. My friend & I ordered 2 tea's & 2 appetizers. The Jajik was decent but nothing special & pita it came with seemed store bought not fresh. The Cigar Borek was good flavor and crunch but was heavy as it was deep fried. Tea was good but expected it to be hotter temperature. Ambiance & service was good. Food is overpriced for the quantity & quality you get. Sure it's Beverly Hills, but the food should be reflective of its price -- and the quality did not. Overall, it was one time thing. Parking is meter but there's a structure on Beverly.

What a great find! Just had a fantastic dinner-relaxed atmosphere, delicious food, perfect service. Our new favorite place!!!

Cafe Istanbul has great food and amazing customer service. It's a family run business and you can tell they put a lot of care and love into their restaurant. I've been to Istanbul and it almost feels like you're there. Love it!

Although the food here is very good, their service is terrible. They took my lunch order over the telephone, but when I went to pick it up the server told me that there was no order under my name so I bought my lunch elsewhere. Then, when I returned to my office 30 minutes, the same server who told me that there was no order under my name called me at my office to tell me that my order was ready. Someone needs some training or a new job. I will not go back, but it's a bummer because they are located so close to my office.

Herşey çok güzeldi! Kesinlikle bir daha gelecez. Los Angeles'ta en güzel Türk restoranlarından biri. Kesinlikle öneririm!

Decent place! The food was good. 2 of the 3 items were outstanding. I wasn't a big fan of the kofta. Reason for it being 4 instead of 5 stars is the service. Wasn't great! The guy that served me really made me feel like I was an inconvenience by being there. Mind you he came to my table a total of 3 times - to take my order, to bring my food and to cash me out. Kind of strange. It wasn't very busy either so I don't know what his deal was. Maybe just didn't like me...

Ilk defa gittik plate doner aldik ama o kadar az et vardi ki sade pilava 30$ verdik. Fiyatlari inanilmaz pahali. Sucuklu yumurta yedik sucugu gormek icin buyutec lazim ahci cok cimri sanirim. Ayni turkiyedekiler gibi kafalar az et az sucuk az ekmek. Bir daha asla gitmem kimseyede tavsiye etmem. Parasini verdigim halde az et az sucuk haksizlik. Ayrica et ekmek yumurta neyin tadina baksak cok fazla baharat hint yemegi yemis gibi olduk. Kesinlikle parasini haketmiyor. We went to a plate kebab place for the first time, but there was so little meat that we ended up paying $30 just for rice. The prices were unbelievably high. We had scrambled eggs with sausage, but you need a magnifying glass to see the sausage; the chef is really stingy. It's the same as in Turkey, where they give you little meat, little sausage, little bread. I'll never go there again, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's unfair to pay for so little meat and sausage. Also, no matter what we tried--meat, bread, eggs--it all tasted excessively spicy, like we had eaten Indian food. It definitely doesn't deserve the money.

Food is amazing. Love the kebabs. Will come here again for sure. We went there for two days in a row on our LA trip

I ordered a chicken bowl there and it was super delicious. I asked for extra beef on it and they serve it with nice tomato chunks and cut bell pepper chunks, I just don't know the exact word for that, but it was delicious and not even expensive. And are not cheap on protein, the bowl has almost more meat than rice, and I appreciate that. Will come back for it

Very unprofessional place. I ordered food through uber eats. They waited until my delivery person arrive to pick up my food to let me know they are out of the item i ordered. I was willing to pay more and get another item delivered to me. however after an hour wait which is close to their closing time. They canceled my order without consulting me. I called the place multiple times to tell them not to cancel my order but no response either. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL PLACE. Do not eat or order from them!

The young guy who attended us made us wait while he had a full on convo with some people outside. He cut some of our group off when we were walking in. He didn't have a clean table ready even though it wasn't busy. He didn't bring us our drinks. He wouldn't answer my questions. He got sarcastic and demeaning. Lectured me on Turkish food even though I've had it since the high school. Brought me an alcohol menu after I told him like 3x that I don't drink alcohol. Didn't bring me utensils. Didn't make sure we had napkins. Didn't charge our order the way we asked him to. Didn't deserve a damn tip even though the menu says 20% is required. But the food was good and the cook made up all the things the waiter didn't do. I was gonna leave 2 stars but the service not redeemable. Oh yeah, and instead of apologizing he wanted to become a fluffer boy and proceeded to call me a big boss and stuff instead of just leaving us alone; we had already paid... What did I ever do but ask simple questions of the ingredients in certain items? We were still courteous and tried to have a great time since we planned to come here for such a long time.

Everything was delicious!!!! I dined in with my family once and the whole experience was great!! The servers were really friendly and the food was AMAZING.

Horrible and un sanitary! Guy working had extremely long nails was coughing and sneezing in his hands over and over and not washing or cleaning his hands then touching every thing we had to leave asap after noticing that! Super dangerous if your crazy enough to eat here don't trust the male waiter with long hair

Love Turkish food the food is good service very good close to us price reasonable you can share a plate.

Good food but worst service and hospitality no management!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is one of the best restaurants I've been to in Los Angeles. I really have no idea why this place doesn't have higher reviews. Every time I've been here, both the food and service has been excellent. Best food is the Iskender and Manti. Their Turkish coffee is also good as well.

I asked a waitress Can I have a glass of water for 3 times but she never brought me which was so rude! It was a nice restaurant but I never go there again. NO THANKS

We were just there and noticed the waiter has a very bad cold and kept sniffling & touching his nose!! That was disgusting!!! Why would they let anyone who is sick work like that??!!! That's very unhygienic and unprofessional!!! We had to stand up & leave!! Very disappointed !! Now I feel like I caught the flu! He obviously touched the menus and gave them to us! He should at least wear a mask while he is sick!!!