Sign up with email

or

Already a member? Log in.

Trouble logging in?

Not a member? Sign up!

In the realm of Turkey’s small businesses, the esnaf lokantası (tradesmen’s restaurant) hovers above everything like a uniting holy spirit. A good one certainly is divine in nature. Take just about any old esnaf lokantası, and you’re sure to encounter a community that only exists at that particular spot on earth.

At Tunçlar Lokantası, not far from Istanbul’s downtown area of Taksim Square, the workers from the small shops on Cumhuriyet Caddesi would share tables with the bureaucrats from TRT Radio. At the next table, an old locksmith from the streets off of Elmadağ Caddesi might share a loaf of bread with an independent bookkeeper who was still around thanks to paying stabilized rent in a charitable foundation-owned building. For all of the people who crowded the room on a regular basis, Tunçlar was the center of their Venn diagram, the point at which disparate lives overlapped for some good, honest home cooking.

a major redevelopment project that was already

On a recent lunch excursion to Tunçlar, we were distraught to see metal barriers blocking off the lovely row houses around Elmadağ Caddesi. Though Tunçlar’s doors stubbornly remained open for another week or two, in the end, the venue lost the fight with well underway. “I feel bad for the esnaf [tradespeople] around here. That was one of only two good lokantas in the whole area,” said gourmand and Tunçlar regular Murat Deha Boduroğlu.

We felt equally bad about this turn of events and wondered what Vizzion, the Belgian redeveloper of the Taksim area, had planned for this massive historic block. From the backside, it looked as though another of Istanbul’s numerous tunnel projects was underway, this one burrowing straight to China! According to a report in Habertürk newspaper, however, the pit will eventually be home to a hotel/convention center/shopping mall, Şan City, named after a well-known theater that once stood on the spot.

In the same report, project manager Selim Dalaman revealed that Elmadağ Caddesi, home to the lovely row houses where Tunçlar lived for so many years, is slated for a project called “Gurme Sokağı” (“Gourmet Street”). World-renowned Michelin-starred chefs have been consulted for the project, which is to feature the best of world cuisines. When we contacted Mr. Dalaman for further details, he was unable to flesh out the plan for us, telling us merely that a detailed research project was underway. Whatever the developers have in mind, however, we suspect that there will not be an esnaf lokantası on Gurme Sokağı.

Istanbul is losing one of the loveliest, most undisturbed historic streets in the city so that shoppers can have yet another mall at their disposal. When the dust settles, will Tunçlar Lokantası, a longtime neighborhood institution, have really been chased off of the street for a food court dreamed up by Belgian developers? Erasing the past is one thing, but challenging the sanctity of the esnaf lokantası is something far more grave. The developers who so cavalierly kicked out Tunçlar’s down-home cooks in favor of Michelin-starred chefs may not realize this, but they have left the area with a culinary and cultural hole far deeper and harder to fill than the one their bulldozers are busy digging.

  • Fine(d) DiningJune 23, 2020 Fine(d) Dining (0)
    The officials from the Ministry of Health came late in the evening on a Friday night and […] Posted in Tbilisi
  • Cafe LitteraJuly 18, 2019 Cafe Littera (0)
    On June 20, Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze signed a decree abolishing the […] Posted in Tbilisi
  • Hayata Sarıl LokantasıAugust 20, 2018 Hayata Sarıl Lokantası (0)
    It’s dinnertime and every table is full at Hayata Sarıl Lokantası, a cozy restaurant […] Posted in Istanbul
Ansel Mullins

Published on April 26, 2013

Related stories

June 23, 2020

Fine(d) Dining: Tbilisi Restaurants Face Penalties Upon Reopening

Tbilisi | By Paul Rimple
TbilisiThe officials from the Ministry of Health came late in the evening on a Friday night and entered Tbilisi’s popular gastro-entertainment complexes Fabrika and Ghvinis Karkhana-Wine Factory #1. They knew there would be a lot of people here celebrating life again after two and a half months in lockdown. They also understood that even with…
Cafe Littera, photos by Justyna Mielnikiewicz
July 18, 2019

Cafe Littera: A Tbilisi Culinary Pioneer Faces an Uncertain Future

Tbilisi | By Paul Rimple
TbilisiOn June 20, Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze signed a decree abolishing the Writer’s House of Georgia, Tbilisi’s leading institution of literary culture and the home of Cafe Littera, the restaurant that gave birth to the culinary revolution Georgia is currently going through. As soon as the ink was dry, the Writer’s House accounts were…
August 20, 2018

Hayata Sarıl Lokantası: Meals with a Mission

Istanbul | By Jennifer Hattam
IstanbulIt’s dinnertime and every table is full at Hayata Sarıl Lokantası, a cozy restaurant with crisp white walls, a patterned-tile floor, and cheery flowers on the café-style tables. “Are you going to serve that sometime tonight?” a floor manager barks sarcastically into the cramped kitchen, where black-apron-clad servers scramble to fill new plates while a…
Select your currency
USD United States (US) dollar
EUR Euro