It's really interesting that currently only 1 out of 14 reviews for this restaurant is not in…read moreTurkish, as I was surprised by the amount of foreigners around and figured locals wouldn't be so keen. Glad to see that's not the case.
Unfortunately I forgot to check as we were leaving what the neighbouring restaurants are called but basically the entrance is on the north side of the street (right hand side coming from Istiklal) through a non-descript door with the words 'Emre Han' on it, you then have to go into the lift and press for the 6th floor. Ask, as we did, staff at other restaurants for help if you miss it!
The interior is utterly charming, a sort of attic garden, almost like a picnic railway carriage. It was packed at 9pm on a Wednesday night and there's nowhere really to wait/get a drink but we were seated after only about 10 minutes (grab a menu to amuse yourself, it's a great read).
You order by writing down the dishes you want on a piece of paper, which saves a lot of pointing and poor translation. We went for the cheapest 37.5l wine, which like all the Turkish wine we had was very good. We opted for three mezze and one casserole dish. Foolishly I didn't realised the meat wasn't minced in the one we picked, so was not that keen on that aspect of it but the cheese/bechamel/aubergine part was great, and my friend who does like chunks of meat assured me the whole thing was delicious.
We also like the courgette mezze we got although it had too much yoghurt on it, rather drowning the vegetable. The cheese pastry we had was obviously delicious but for me far and away the best dish was a cauliflower mezze which was subtle in flavour, cooked perfectly and one of my favourite things we had in Istanbul.
Would definitely return/recommend.
