Came here for my birthday and did the seven-course tasting menu. I left pretty conflicted. There were a few things I genuinely loved, but the meal was surprisingly uneven.
Service was great overall. Everyone was friendly and attentive, although a few of the gaps between courses dragged longer than I would have liked.
The Ezme Crunch was a pleasant start. The tomato ezme, whipped feta and tarhana chip worked well enough, and I liked the little spoon presentation, but I kept wanting some fresh chile or sharper heat to wake it up. It wasn't bad, just a little one-note.
The Patlican fell very flat for me. With slow-cooked eggplant, babaganoush, olive paste, sun-dried tomato and walnuts, I expected a lot more depth. Instead, the dish tasted remarkably muted. I was especially hoping for more smoke and intensity from the eggplant and babaganoush.
The Blackened Cauliflower was much better. It actually delivered some of the smokiness I had been missing, and the cauliflower, tahini and demi-glace came together really nicely. My only issue was texture. I kept thinking some fried garlic or shallots would be perfect, then realized the menu actually lists crispy garlic. If it was there, I barely registered it. A stronger crunchy element would have taken this up another level.
The Crunchy Shrimp was easily my least favorite of the smaller courses. The shrimp are wrapped in kadaif, but for me there was simply too much of it. Instead of adding a light crisp exterior, the dry, brittle pastry dominated the bite and overwhelmed the shrimp underneath. The sweet chili sauce did not do enough to balance that dryness, and more specifically, it tasted almost exactly like Lee Kum Kee sweet chili sauce. The shrimp themselves seemed good. I just really disliked the preparation.
The Manti came close to being great. The whipped garlic labneh was delicious, probably one of my favorite individual components of the meal, and it worked beautifully with the bright tomato sauce. Unfortunately, the lamb-and-beef filling was a letdown. The meat felt lean and subdued compared with everything around it. A richer, fattier, more deeply seasoned filling would have completed the dish.
For the mains, we tried both the Shish Kebab and the Branzino, and they were basically opposite experiences.
The Shish Kebab was excellent. The meat was cooked beautifully, extremely tender and very well seasoned. The sumac onions gave it some brightness, and eating it with the freshly baked flatbread made the whole thing even better. This was easily my favorite savory dish of the night. I would happily have traded several of the other courses for a giant platter of this kebab.
The Branzino, unfortunately, was at the other end of the spectrum. Our server explained that the fish itself was intentionally left unsalted because the grilled sea beans and other components were supposed to provide enough natural salinity. I understand the idea, but it simply did not work for me. I searched around the plate for that saltiness and never really found it. The orange-lemon sauce was also too restrained to compensate.
More importantly, the fish itself was disappointing. It reminded me more than I would have liked of the frozen Trader Joe's branzino fillets I've cooked at home. For a restaurant dish centered around branzino, I expected the fish to stand out much more. The accompanying rice pilaf also was not for me, although that felt more like personal preference than an execution problem.
Finally, the Taksim Donuts were another mixed course. The donut itself reminded me of funnel cake, except less satisfying than a really good funnel cake. The chocolate components were much better. I really liked the chocolate ice cream with the chocolate sand, and the five-spice chocolate was genuinely interesting and complex.
Overall, there were flashes of a really good meal here. The shish kebab was excellent, the cauliflower was very good, and there were individual components, especially the garlic labneh and chocolate elements, that I would happily eat again. But there were enough dishes that felt muted or simply did not work for me that the tasting menu never really came together as a whole.
If I came back, I would probably skip the tasting menu and build a meal around that shish kebab. read more