Spago Istanbul: A Bit Of Disappointment

Started to cook at the age of 14 and immigrated to Austria from the U.S. at the age of 24, Wolfgang Puck has been one of the popular names in the culinary world with his unique style blending Californian cuisine with French cuisine. With his numerous 2 Michelin stars awarded restaurants, he took over Hollywood and has been known as the main chef of the Oscars since 1995.

 

As such, I too have been including the restaurants of Wolfgang Puck into my business trip schedules for years.

 

In recent months, I visited Cut in Singapore which offers “steakhouse” dishes as well as the first Spago in Beverly Hills which was originally opened in Hollywood in 1982 and then relocated in 1997. I was satisfied with both restaurants indeed.

 

For this reason, I had already been excited by the news that Puck decided to enter the culinary scene of Istanbul with his restaurant “Spago”. Furthermore, as my blogger friends recommended me to visit the restaurant, at the first opportunity I arranged my schedule and made a reservation for a dinner at Spago.

 

Located on the terrace floor of St. Regis Hotel in Nişantaşı, the walls of Spago are glamorized with photographs. It feels like watching a red carpet show with all the shots of the chef with various celebs.

 

Walking past the black & white looks of Leonardo di Caprio, Sharon Stone, Jack Nicholson, we headed towards the bar. However, as we could only manage to make a reservation for a late dinner and wanted to drink something to fill in time, the bar was the first place that we felt the servicing was chaotic on that night. Because, we had to remind the waiters about a simple Bloody Mary seven times before it wound up at our table in half an hour and then we had a small crisis about obtaining a straw for the drink.

 

As we eventually headed towards our table, we found the table was messy since the waiters hurried to clean it and left it disorganized. We simply looked past how it looked and focused on the dinner.

 

The dishes on the menu were inspired by the Californian cuisine and they were clearly described so that the diners would get to know what kind of taste they would get before they order.

 

The big feast of flavors that we’d been expecting from Spago Istanbul started with pizza with salmon, a treat from the restaurant. While the warm pizza topped with smoked salmon, tartare sauce and caviar left a satisfactory aftertaste on our palates, in my humble opinion, it was the only star of the night since the other dishes couldn’t outdo it in taste and presentation.

 

All of the refined restaurants around the world always make their own bread. But the fact that the bread is made in the restaurant does not make us ignore the shortcomings of the bread. As it is the case, the thin pizza bread served at Spago Istanbul which was said to have been made at the restaurant tasted like they had been baked either the previous day or in the morning of that day. As when we wanted to get a warmer and fresher one, it was even more surprising that they reheated the same bread and served it a bit burned and dry this time.

 

Following the bread which was a bit salty, tuna tartare was prepared with avocado, pickled ginger, cucumber and soy sauce. I took a few bites but it turned out be one of the dishes of the night that didn’t leave a discernible aftertaste on my palate.

 

An Italian combination of potato, flour and eggs, gnocchi was accompanied by lamb cheek, black olives, parsley, pecorino and pieces of ricotta. Although it can be said that it was a successful dish, the only downside was the gnocchi was not cooked al dente but rather overcooked.

 

Maine lobster and King crab was accompanied by spicy tomato and horseradish. However, since its ingredients reminded me of the “cocktail sauce” for shrimp made with ketchup and mayonnaise which was popular during my teenage years, I didn’t like it that much.

 

Grilled Lamb Chops was another unsuccessful dish because of its burned and dry texture. Despite that fact that the best lambs in the world are raised in Turkey and that it was the lamb season, the way the meat was cooked in a wrong way only to turn out to be such a tasteless dish frustrated even me, a fan of lamb dishes. So I think it was the weakest link of the night.

 

Turbot (which we couldn’t understand if it really was so or another fish) was served with honey roasted carrots, Moroccan “charmoula” and mint but it had a vague aftertaste that couldn’t excite our palates. Next dish, braised beef cheeks was another average dish of the night. As it didn’t meet our expectations, the texture of the meat was rather tough.

 

Finally, the cheese plate consisted of a good variety of cheeses but they were dry since they hadn’t been successfully preserved. Right after the cheese plate, we skipped the dessert session not to lose time any more.

 

Although our table was attended by Semra and Seyma who were well-informed and very attentive; there was a serious problem with the system of the whole restaurant. The problem was that the orders were transferred from the first waiter to the second and the third one in an amateur way and this caused a delay and other problems with the order given.

 

First Venture outside the U.S.

 

As it was the case with Massimo Bottura, the chef of the 3rd best restaurant of the world Osteria Francescana who opened his first restaurant (Ristorante Italia di Massimo Bottura) outside his country in Turkey, Spago has already 4 restaurants in the U.S. and opened the fifth one in Turkey.

 

I resent to say that I wasn’t pleased with the restaurant although its opening is a sign of developing gastronomic culture of the city which should make all of us proud.

 

Besides the problems with the service and the tastes; after all the positive comments from many of my friends, my first impression left me with questions about the sustainability of the restaurant.

 

We cannot deny the efforts of the investors who brought the chef to Turkey. However, as a person who has been to many other restaurants of Wolfgang Puck, if I should make a comparison between them and the one in Turkey, I have to say that they need to make more of an effort to level with the quality of the other restaurants of Puck.

 

I think one should visit a restaurant at least 2 or 3 times to make a good evaluation. And if it’s a recently opened restaurant, we should look past the small problems and visit the place once again to see if they were corrected.

 

As I plan to revisit Spago Istanbul as soon as possible, I wish to see it achieves the level of quality befitting both the name of the restaurant and the city…

 

Bon appétit and enjoy the taste of life…