This food tour takes you beyond Istanbul’s typical tourist eats

The waiting room of Istanbul’s Sirkeci train station, built for the Orient Express in the 1850s, seems an unusual place to begin a food tour, but Culinary Backstreets specialises in taking guests to unknown and unexpected pockets of cities to discover culinary delights they would never find without true insider knowledge.

Our guide, Esin, energetic and ebullient, will spend the next five hours with our group of three, walking and sampling food of an area around the Grand Bazaar, which is dotted with little “hans” or arcades that first appeared in 1455 during the Ottoman period.

The ubiquitous tea … Turks are said to drink between 15 and 20 glasses a day.Credit: Culinary Backstreets

Esin has brought a selection of typical breakfast foods and laid them out on a low table; sesame-laced simit, clotted buffalo milk drizzled in honey, olives, dark dried apricots, goats cheese and acuka, a red pepper paste. The station tea master brings us glasses of dark amber, sweet tea.

Next, we’re off to explore the rabbit warren of hans.

A taste of Culinary Backstreets’ food tour of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.Credit: Culinary Backstreets

Hidden in the hans are the workshops of artisans who spin copper and beat silver, and the tea sellers and food stalls that support them. Most hans are devoted to specific trades – such as furriers, camera repairers and watchmakers.

Each han has a tea master who responds to constant requests for glasses of hot black tea from bells on cords hung from each floor of the arcade. Tea is paid for with little tokens like casino chips. No business can be transacted without offering the guest a glass. According to Esan, Turks drink between 15 and 20 glasses a day.

Istanbul’s streets are a culinary adventure.Credit: Culinary Backstreets

We emerge from a han that was once an ancient mosque to try traditional burek at a small shop, with a glass of pomegranate and orange juice. Rasim, or the “chef”, keeps the flaky pastry steaming under the counter to keep it warm and tender.

Next, we take a seat at Gurenc Konyali, a restaurant famous for its wedding soup from the city of Konya, and we sample a bowl of the rich, lemony tomato soup with dried okra and lamb.

A quick dash through a covered street and we join a few others having breakfast at long tables under the shadow of seagulls hovering for food scraps. The restaurant Sehzade Cag Kebap is the only place in town to do cag kebab correctly, according to Esin.

The buzz of the bazaar.Credit: Culinary Backstreets

The lamb is roasted over coals, then sliced and grilled, served with lavash bread and ayran, a salty yoghurt drink. There’s dessert too – crunchy kadayif dolmasi, a shredded, walnut pastry doused in sugar syrup.

We briefly stop at the family-run Meshur Cig Kofteci where chef Ali Usta is a master of raw meat kofta. The kofta we sample is made from bulghur wheat and spices, which Ali liberally douses with lemon juice.

Manning the grill.Credit: Culinary Backstreets

As if we haven’t had enough to eat, the next stop is a tiny little grocery store, where we taste Murat’s crispy grilled cheese sandwich with sausage. He’s been making these since 1990.

We have coffee, before visiting brothers Yakup and Kenan who are known for their wood-fired pide.

Yakup makes the dough each day and Kenan looks after the fire. The pides are incredibly tasty and pillowy, and I wish I had more capacity to eat it all.

As a break from eating, we explore more hans, meeting artisans such as Sabri, a master of copper who uses old school equipment to make parts for hookahs and bowls.

Tasty pastry.

We sample some chicken and rice from a street cart before venturing to the edge of the Grand Bazaar and trying some kebabs from Mustafa, the “No.1 maestro” of kokorecci-style kebabs, which are roasted and chopped and formed with pepper, tomato and thyme. They’re spicy, salty and utterly delicious.

But wait, there’s more. We join the throng inside Durumcu clamouring for durum, a spit-roasted kebab served in big rounds of bread made by master wrap-maker Raif, and liberally garnished with fresh herbs.

Finally, we sit in the shade of a mosque and eat bena, the chewy Turkish ice-cream made from salep, wild orchid root.

In a few short hours we’ve met artists and tea makers, store holders, chefs and bakers, and discovered places we’d never found if left to our own devices and maps.

THE DETAILS

TOUR
Culinary Backstreets of the Bazaar Quarter costs from $US135 ($203). See culinarybackstreets.com

STAY
The Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at Sultanahmet is a short walk from Istanbul’s historic attractions and from the meeting point for this tour. From €750 ($1224) a night, low season. https://www.fourseasons.com/istanbul

The writer was a guest of Culinary Backstreets.