Istanbul Restaurants
 

We are headed to Istanbul on Sept. 12th! We will have 5 nights there and want to enjoy Turkish food; we love spicy food, and we eat pretty much everything. Recommendations, please!

We were in Istabul in April and loved it...and the food is delicious. Not necessarily spicy but very flavorful. See my trip report "risab and families istanbul trip report."

Our favorite restaurant was Cafe Rumeli in Sultanhemet. I recommend reservations. We actually stayed in Galata but loved this restaurant and went there twice. We went to 360- thought it was over-rated.

Yesil Ev

Rami

Divan

Optimist's Cafe



Thingorjus

Had a great lunch at the Hamdi Restaurant. The following is from my October 07 trip notes:

....Hamdi Restaurant next to the spice bazaar and across the street from the Galata Bridge, stopping along the way to buy a few small souvenirs. Lunch was wonderful. We didn’t have reservations, but were able to get a table on the top floor with the glass walls taking in the views of Istanbul [we got there before the crowds arrived]. Some of the windows were open to let in the air and at one point we could hear the call to prayer on a speaker from one of the nearby minarets. What an amazing sound! We could hear the call to prayer several times in the day. For lunch I enjoyed the lamb kebabs, which was very tasty and tender...

Have fun, Istanbul is fabulous!

Monica ((F))

The end of my trip report (http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35151861) mentions a few Istanbul restaurants. BTW, Turkish food is not particularly spicy.