5 *****
After a while in a new country, some of us get a bit complacent and assume ourselves experts on what’s on offer culturally as well as edibly. We’ve ventured further afield than meyhanes and Bodrum and sit comfortably on our “no longer a tourist” thrones. So, the week I first heard there was a region called Antakya and a cuisine to go with it, was also the week I was led to pretty much the only place to try it in Istanbul. Which is why Antiochia, nestled alongside its rowdier meyhane neighbors in Asmalımescit, seeks to educate as much as nourish. The owner, Suleyman, is passionately devoted to bringing this ‘Antakyan concept’ to a wider audience to the point that your meal might turn into a well meant eulogy.
But, he’s right, the food might look like yet more meze and kebab. but of the seven appetizers, two excellent dishes I had never seen before – thyme and olive salad (kekik salatası) and a pepper and tomato paste with walnuts and pomegranate (muammara) – and four, including smoked aubergine and peppers and onions in oil, had elements from the Antakyan oilve oil or pomegranate extract that gave them a depth and sweetness not always found in this kind of dish. The only possible exception was the humus which was wetter than usual but not noticeably different. They came served with a paper thin, crispy bread (lavaş) slathered with chili which was a welcome change from baskets of white bread that you overfill on before the main course. The choice here is şiş kebab or a spicy, sweet dürüm, the latter particularly mouthwatering.
Desserts are no less strange yet rewarding: green walnuts (ceviz tatlısı) or mini aubergine (patlıcan tatlısı) served with milk ice-cream. Skeptical tasting of the aubergine revealed its almost fig-like sweetness. You can even have a go at recreating some of the wizardry at home as Antiochia sells its own oil, pomegranate extract, thyme salad, walnuts and aubergines in syrup along with a range of natural olive oil and herb soaps made according to traditional Ottoman methods. But at these prices, especially with the lunchtime 20% discount, they’d be better as presents for those less geo-culinarily fortunate than us.
7 meze plate, 15 ytl; dürüm and 4 mezes, 19ytl
0pen 12-10.30pm everyday except Sunday
Open No alcohol
