Neo-Turkish Cuisine In Kumbaraci Yokuşu: Yeni Lokanta

In the new millennium, most people walk past the doors of the restaurants not with the intention to satisfy their hunger, but to get surprised by the chefs’ creations.

 

Noma is one the restaurants that gives the most creative answers to such culinary pursuits. The first thing that you’re served is a flowerpot and you start munching on the flowers with the thoughts of “I think I must have gone out of my mind or something.” In another place, Bottura serves the same cheese in five different forms. After watching what surprising things Alex Atala can do with the heart of palms and cactus at D.O.M., you’ll get stumped by the strange fusions like yam roots, tarragon and the Buddha’s hand that Nakamura creates for you at Werneckhof.

 

So, in order to surprise you, should the chefs always make use of different vegetables or herbs from various locations that you haven’t even heard mentioned before? Isn’t there any method to do something like that with the ordinary ingredients like beans, yoghurt, meatballs or kısır? Apparently, someone has found the right formulae to pull that off!

 

Offering a warm welcome to its customers with its motto “Old Turkish Cuisine with a New Touch”, Yeni Lokanta is located in Kumbaracı Yokuşu neighboring Asmalı Mescit. Swarmed by passionate directors, the street has its unique personality that magically makes you forget how steep the street is.

 

The sous chef is a familiar name: Civan Er

 

We know him from “Changa Restaurants” located both in Sıraselviler and Emirgan, and the interesting recipes he once wrote for the newspaper Hürriyet. Putting aside his books and articles, he took on cooking for his restaurant and he’s become a success story in the gourmet world. After completing the bachelor degree in economics, he went to London for master’s degree in London. At the same time, he started to work in Sofra Restraurant. After he’d mastered his job, he wended his way for gastronomy and went under a training for this purpose. This is the path of how he molded his life. Following his years with Tarık Bayazıt in the fine-dining cuisine of Changa, he finally breathed life into his ideas for an ideal restaurant and opened Yeni Lokanta at the top of this steep street.

 

The restaurant is on the lower floor of a cotton-white boutique hotel. It welcomes every passer-by with its huge door and the black & white mosaics used in flooring the interior. On the right side, you will find a bar covered with İznik-style china and crowded by people having a drink right before their meals.

 

If you follow the big pictures hanging on the wall alongside with the kitchen safes on with some bread and pickles on top of them, you will see a few tables in addition to the three tables right before the stone oven which Civan Er never leaves. The restaurant’s atmosphere can be defined with these keywords: “minimalist”, “cosy” and maybe a bit “rustic”. The most prominent objects you can find in the whole restaurant are the green lambs hanging over the dining tables. The whole design is rather consistent with these words of the chef: “I get bored by too stylish and formal restaurants.”

 

The ingredients used in the recipes are the ordinary things that you can find in every Turkish kitchen. It is Civan Er’s delicious mission to put them together as listed on the tasting menu.

 

We sat at one of the tables right in front of the stone oven. It’s easy to guess, we were exposed to a provocative smell of sourdough! The chef definitely knew what he was doing when he sprinkled some brans over the breads. When they were served in a copper bucket accompanied by some smoky butter, our taste buds started to work. It was a great starter to excite our palates.

 

Following the sourdough, the first dish from the tasting menu was string beans with burned yoghurt from Denizli. That burned aroma of yoghurt and the string beans created an interesting combination. With the grilled pepper hidden in its core, I think it was the star of the tasting menu.

 

Marsh samphire with green plums was outstanding with the quality of its ingredients. It was crispy and fresh. By that, it left a refreshing impact on our palates and stomachs.

 

One of the most creative dishes on the menu was carrot spread with ginger and walnuts. With its refreshing taste, it’s definitely fit for summer season. The carrots and the ginger were accompanied by olive oil, lime, cumin and some sliced garlic.

 

As for a start to meat dishes, we chose meatballs with halloumi. Accompanied by some vegetables and potato baked in the stone oven and some yoghurt beside the meatballs, it tasted delicious although it didn’t look very attractive.

 

Another dish with some yoghurt was zucchini flower fritter. Although if I’d been in Alaçatı, I would say its taste was just average but it tasted alright for Istanbul.

 

The artichoke salad following zucchini flower fritter had strawberry slices in it. Although it didn’t have an extraordinary taste, I can say, with its light and refreshing combination it also belonged to that food category fit for the hot weathers.

 

When we switched back to meat dishes, the waitress showed up with a special taste: spicy Antep sausage with walnuts. The spice mix was good as expected and the melt-in-the-mouth meat was put on a bed of warm barlotti bean puree. The dish was not the best one on the menu but nevertheless its taste was scrumptious despite a flaw in its appearance which was the marks on the meat left by the over-searing.

 

One of the most popular foods of the restaurant is vegetarian mantı (similar to dumpling). It looked like an irresistibly appetizing picture. Besides its fairly appealing appearance, the mantıs were filled with dried eggplants rather than meat. It was served with Antochian yoghurt sauce with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses and a sauce made from red pepper paste. For me, it was an average dish where its appearance won over its taste.

 

Oven roasted beef ribs was another frustration of the night. The meat was dry and a bit burned. It felt like a piece of gum in our mouths.

 

Lamb shank was also dry probably because it had been prepared long before it was cooked. You could sense the intense smell of lamb meat. Even I, as a person who loves lamb meat, could eat only the one third of the meal. I cannot also say the bed made with chives and little barleys (şehriye) was that successful.

 

When we moved onto the desserts, we had two options:

 

The first one was mosaic cake. Although it sounds a bit simple for such a menu, it was a delicious combination of tasteful pistachios and the accompaniment of banana slices with salt caramel sauce.

 

The second dessert had an unforgettable taste: kadaifi wrapped custard fritter. Even for a person like me who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, it even took over me with its thick mastic-flavored custard. The custard was frozen and then cubed into pieces. Having been dipped into egg mix and pressed into kadaifi to get coated, these pieces were served with some smoked ice cream which was made from buffalo milk. You should definitely give this dessert a try.

 

It was a pleasant experience to taste these interesting Turkish dishes with such different interpretations. After all, every one of them was made from the ingredients which can be found throughout the country. Of course eating foods cooked by a “cool” sous chef at such a “cool” ambiance made them taste even better. With its motto “Turkish cuisine with a new touch” Yeni Lokanta is run by the humble chef Civan Er to offer its customers a menu with a creative touch and a cozy atmosphere.

 

Bon appétit and enjoy the taste of life…

 

Yeni Lokanta İstanbul

www.lokantayeni.com

İstiklal Cad./kumbaracı Yokuşu Sk No:66, Tünel/İstanbul

+90 212 292 25 50