Chef Mezze — Restaurant in Beşiktaş

Mediocre restaurant located at the roof top of one of Istanbul's oldest hotels with great views of the city, serving overpriced, average quality food. Obviously most of the price you pay is due to the views from the location. My first experience was quite terrible but i thought judging a place with just one visit would be injustice so here it goes;

It is difficult to receive normal service from this place if you are not a wealthy enough regular to leave exaggerated tips and spend a good amount on the food and drinks with no expectations. Otherwise you will be treated like you do not belong and must endure delayed service, inattentive personnel with attitude and a table by the wall next to the kitchen door.

If this is your first time here with a reservation, you will probably be seated next to the kitchen door in an empty venue (at least 6 tables that i could count for 4 people each were free, more were available but they were for 6 or more people which were understandably not available to a couple).

When we asked for a better seat to be able to see the view in our last visit (which was due to our anniversary), it was rejected claiming the seating is arranged in the order of the reservations received. For the record we arrived on time for a 19:30 reservation and we were told the claimed reservations for the better tables were to arrive at 21:30. The host also claimed reservations were made several months ago but of course there is no way we can confirm this is true. They could have also offered us better seats on the condition that we leave by 21:30 which would give us sufficient time for a dinner for two. A professional manager would have been kind enough to offer solutions, in our experience this was not the case.

Recalling previous experience here, we decided not to ruin our evening (and anniversary) once more and decided to leave for a better place where we are welcomed and treated respectfully. For the record, at the other restaurant we went, we were done before 21:30 and had a splendid time with flawless service and hospitality.

I can safely recommend avoiding this place for anyone...

NOT recommending (to travellers, especially).

The view is great. But, the seats are too close to each other. It's like you're dining with people sitting next to you. You can hear every conversation from your sides, so yours will for others.

About SERVICE, even though it is very luxurious restaurant in a hotel rooftop, servers are not so educated in serving etiquette. Compared to its price, the service that you'd get is ridiculously not worthy. It's not that they are not nice, but, just not great servers. Also, they barely speak English. So, it's very difficult to order if you're a traveller like me.

I asked how many mezzes I should order if I don't want to order too much since I was dining alone, and the answers from the servers were "I don't know," or "oh, it's very small portion." And eventually they got me order 4 different mezes and I could barely finish them. They were somewhat sly and wanted me to order too much to spend more money. Very sly.

Also, while I was dining, one server came and gave me a glass of wine when I didn't order it, and of course, I thought it was complementary. I thought they were being nice since I ordered just so much without knowing anything and especially I was dining solitary, so I started to have some sips of it appreciating their service at that moment for a while. But, then later they figured out that it was their fault that they delievered it to a wrong table. They asked me if I want to pay for it, and as I said I thought it was complementary, they wanted to take it away from it. What a great serving, really... And, there wasn't a single apology in this situation about the wrong delievering or taking it away. I was just so frustrated about their service at this point.

At the end, I paid almost 45€ with four mezes that I could barely finish at all. I accept that it is also my fault that I was too naive, but, for other travellers, difinitely not recommeding.

Mezzes were super salty to me... i've tried mezzes from a few other restaurants like Galata Kitchen and Ficcin, and they were just so good. But from this place was...

We went there yesterday evening with some friends, we were having fun, the food was good until a fight broke up around 11 pm. It escalated quickly and most clients raced outside terrified. Waiters, rather than trying to calm the situation and separate the trouble makers, engaged in the fight too!! Me and my friends went outside, we looked for a waiter to pay and get the hell out. We found one who wanted to charge us full, we said we aren’t paying full as we did not finish our dinner, did not get our desserts and left with our heart beats up the roof. Not exactly the type of Saturday evening you expect after a long week at work. The waiter instead of apologising and thanking us for not leaving without paying threaten us to bring the police (that was there for the fight already)!!! Unbelievable!!! For the restaurant manager: that’s not ok, fix your waiters and get security if some of your customers are violent...