Cuma — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

Cuma opened in the Çukurcuma neighborhood four months ago and is already a firm local favorite. Located just a hundred meters from author Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence and behind a line of antique shops, its breezy terrace is transporting, creating an almost tropical vibe. Up the narrow stairs in the century-old building, visitors will find a small house-restaurant, complete with entrance area, kitchen, living room, dining hall with antique decor, even toys on the shelves – all adding up to a very homey, vintage feel.

Owner Banu Tiryakioğulları graduated from the Culinary Arts Academy in Maslak and previously worked as a chef at the much-acclaimed restaurant Changa. She says that once she saw the space that is now Cuma, she knew it had to be a restaurant. (The name comes from old French maps of Çukurcuma, on which the area was called Djouma.) Tiryakioğulları gets her ingredients as locally as possible – most come from the Feriköy organic market and the Kastamonu market in Kasımpaşa, while dairy and olive products make their way across the Marmara sea from Bandırma.

As soon as we sit down, we are greeted with toasted bread and a mouthwatering pepper paste. Cuma’s menu is heavily focused on Turkish cuisine – the egg-tomato-and-pepper dish menemen, eggs with sucuk (spicy beef sausage), a cheese-and-fresh-herb omelet, and a variety of toasted sandwiches – but also offers other selections such as gazpacho and eggplant-tomato linguini.

A lunch menu that changes daily features dishes such as eggs with minced meat; grilled sea bass salad; lemon potato salad; grilled chicken skewers; firik (roasted green wheat) salad, a southeast Turkish specialty; and a salad with apricots, walnuts and wheat grain, which is light but filling. The zucchini-and-cheese patties we order come with a cucumber-yogurt sauce; the combination simply melts in your mouth. The köfte we choose to follow the dish up with comes atop a bed of eggplant; we couldn’t get...

I had high hopes for this Michelin-recommended restaurant, but the overall experience was very disappointing. Both the service and the food did not meet the standards one would expect from a place with such a prestigious endorsement.

Service: We arrived carrying quite a few items and asked a staff member if they could provide an extra chair for our bags. Without even thinking, the answer was a flat no. For a fine dining restaurant, comfort and attentiveness are key – this felt careless and lacking in thoughtfulness. We ordered a bottle of white wine, but it was served completely warm – room temperature. We told the staff not to pour it yet because it wasn’t chilled, but they went ahead and poured it anyway. This was unprofessional and showed a lack of attention to detail. We asked for sparkling water, but the staff only poured for one or two people. Some of us had our glasses ready but were ignored – again, not very attentive. Dishes were served by reaching between guests without any notice. No one was informed beforehand, which felt careless and even risky – someone could have easily turned and knocked the plate over. It’s not the kind of service you’d expect in a fine dining setting.

Food: The plating was overly simple and not visually appealing – far from the kind of presentation you’d expect from a Michelin-recommended restaurant. The octopus was possibly the worst I’ve ever had. It didn’t taste fresh, and the texture was oddly mushy. We told the staff, but they simply took the plate away without any comment – very strange. Several dishes were drowned in sauce, which completely overpowered the ingredients. The beef had no real beef flavour, and the fish didn’t taste fresh at all. I’m not sure whether it was due to the ingredients or the way it was cooked, but the result was...

Service was lacking and main course was not convincing

N41°1.921' E28°58.849' Being a must-visit Lonely Planet restaurant, it is a hotspot for non-Turks, although the waiters do not speak English. Cuma seats 24 on its terrace or more inside the atmospheric dining rooms upstairs. The bar is downstairs (1F) and the kitchen is upstairs (2F). The food waiter has to walk down the stairs with the plates, communicate and coordinate with the drinks waiter. The division of labour immediately collapsed, because the drinks waiter was new to the job and had no oversight. The food waiter did her best, but being in two different places at the same time was impossible. She tried to fill in the gaps, but was unsuccessful.

In August 2021, we ordered cold soup of the day (₺ 25), tomato salad (₺ 90), buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto and grilled peach (₺ 120) and a pizetta with smoked salmon crisp with cucumber and dill labnew (₺105). Cuma served us smoked cottage cheese and tapenade with red pepper as starter. It was excellent and with the soup the best part of the meal. Tasteful. Of the main courses, the pizetta was unpractical to eat (could not be cut and broke into pieces) and the grilled peach was the only warm item. Both main dishes were not convincing as a main course. Good for lunch, not for dinner.

Wine was forgotten when the main course was served. No continuation of courses. Nobody asked for dessert. We skipped it.

Maybe, Cuma is a good restaurant for lunch, but the service was lacking and the main course was not convincing. Not...