Istanbul for foodies

Best restaurants

Istanbul eats with appetite and without apology. The city's restaurant culture runs from basement kebab houses where the grill has not cooled in decades to rooftop terraces where the view does half the work the kitchen should be doing. What makes the dining here worth paying attention to is not the spectacle — other cities do spectacle — but the stubbornness of the cooking: a fish restaurant that serves fish and does not feel the need to also serve sushi, a lahmacun kitchen that has not added avocado to anything. The twelve restaurants below were chosen because each one does a specific thing well and does not pretend to do everything else. Some have views, some have none. A few serve until past midnight; one does not open until the afternoon. They disagree with each other about what a good meal costs, what a proper portion looks like, and whether the tablecloth matters. That is the point.