Ken S.
Yelp
KenScale: 8.25/10
Visit: April 2023
One piece of advice for all travelers looking to check out Istanbul, Turkey. I highly recommend skipping the city during the Eid al-Fitr holiday weekend marking the end of Ramadan. When my wife Jun and I were in the city for the last day of our Turkey trip, we found ourselves being swarmed by a crowd of unprecedented size and density. Perhaps because it was the first holiday weekend after the loosening of the pandemic's grip or because we were in the touristy Sultanahmet neighborhood with all the top sights like Hagia Sophia, we just couldn't walk around at a decent pace and genuinely feared that we might get trampled. Our initial plan was to walk across the Galata Bridge and check out the Beyoğlu district but it took us over an hour and a half to cross the bridge for a distance that would've normally taken at most 30 minutes. By the time we finally crossed the bridge, we were beyond exhausted and decided that we would just go to the Novotel hotel where our dinner reservation was at. After all that struggle, the outstanding meal at Mürver couldn't have come in a timelier manner.
The central concept at Mürver (led by chef Mevlüt Özkaya) is cooking over live fire, with a giant wood oven in the middle of the kitchen. If you would rather focus on seeing all the magic happening at the kitchen instead of enjoying your meal in the outdoor dining area with a scenic view of Istanbul, I recommend sitting at the counter area. It was our first fine dining-style tasting menu in Turkey, and I honestly didn't know what to expect at first. But then the gently smoked seabream came out and I realized that the restaurant was really on to something. One of my favorite dishes came next, a dish with a playful take on a meatball-like dish called topik with Armenian origin. Mürver brought out a version with duck and hummus instead, a surprisingly wonderful combination that I had never encountered in my culinary journey with Jun. Why didn't more restaurants come up with this idea, I wondered while joyfully savoring this dish. There were so-so dishes like octopus which was slightly tougher than the ideal texture, and an expression of düve sucuk (think sausage similar to chorizo) that was a bit too strong in flavor. But the restaurant had more hits than misses, like the competently prepared grouper with charred leak and sorrel sauce, followed by another favorite of mine of the night, slow roasted lamb shoulder with pilaf rice and salted yogurt. We certainly had our fill of lamb dishes throughout our journey in Turkey, but this lamb shoulder was undoubtedly the best one I've had, with exceptional texture and no gamey flavor. For dessert, a colorful dish of pistachio and cherry ice cream offered a delightful finish to our meal.
The restaurant's dining space is fairly sizable so it wouldn't take too much effort to book a reservation. Another plus from the dining experience at Mürver is the expansive Turkish wine list. We had a bottle of kalecik karasi (think a light- to medium-bodied red) from the Ankara region that had similar characters to a good pinot noir. The upscale décor of the dining space makes the restaurant a fantastic place for a romantic date night in Istanbul. Turkey has no shortage of good to outstanding restaurants, especially in Istanbul. If you are open to splurging (our tasting menu didn't come cheap by Turkish standard at around $120 per person based on the exchange rate at that time) for an outstanding modern Turkish culinary experience, Mürver is one place I highly recommend.