Firuzende Galata — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

The only nice thing about this place is the view. Had dinner at Firuzende on Friday night, the only meal i enjoyed is the lentil soup, the stuffed chicken breast was dry, was either over cooked or left in the pass for too long cause i waited forever for meals, the red cabbage salad is pointless really, it is just sherreded cabbage with no flavour even with the cheese. Service is the poorest I experienced on my trip in Istanbul. Waiters are not attentive, after waiting for someone to get my order after more than 10 minutes, I signalled for the male host, I explained to him and that i was giving the waiter the order and he just took the starter order and walked away without asking if I'm ordering main course and desert, which I had already decided on since i waited too long, the Host just looked dazed and didn't apologise or assure me service will improved, he walked away after nodding and just saying "okay". The order took long to arrive, the food came and no salt and pepper was placed on the table, had to signal and struggled to get service. Two waiters attended to the table but not even once did they ask if i need anything or asked if I'm enjoying the meal. The place was not full even. Firuzende just looks fancy on pics and by location, but the service is the ghetto. Try other options in the area, there are many roof top restaurants offering...

I was looking for a place to invite my wedding guests to the night before my wedding and I went to Firuzende to check out their food and environment. I ordered 3 appetizers and a pumpkin linguine for my main dish. Only one of the starters were good (the shrimp), the salmon brioche tasted super mediocre, and the chicken had no taste other than being super spicy. The worst part was the pumpkin linguine. There was essentially 2 tiny pieces of pumpkin in it, and it had NO TASTE. It was the worst pasta I’ve ever had in my life. I never send food back at a restaurant but I sent this one back. I asked the waiter to take it away. He asked if I wanted pasta bolognese instead which I said no. They did not say sorry or anything. When paying, we saw that they were charging us for that horrible pumpkin linguine I had one bite from. I guess it’s fair, but it is not sth a good restaurant would do. When I said that, they said okay we give you extra drinks, I said okay. But still, I’d rather have my money back instead. Also, it was soooo overpriced. Never going back. And definitely not inviting my wedding guests to here. The only nice thing was the view, hence...

I'd booked Firuzende for the rooftop terrace on our last night. There was a bit of confusion about seating but we eventually sat by the window overlooking the bridges across to Galata. The menu looked like it had some great choices and our starters arrived very quickly. The hummus was great but the babaganoush was very different to what we were used to.

Our main courses arrived when we were half way through the starter which set the tone for the attitude - eat quickly and go so we can fit someone else in. Natalya's main looked lovely - chicken something or other but I had stupidly ordered lamb ragout with apricot and I left about half the meat because it was pure fat. It did mean I was constantly fiddling with the food though so every time they came to clear our plates they had to leave empty handed as we slowly watched the sunset.

I actually had my first beer of the holiday here, again to slow things down, until eventually the sun had gone completely. We paid the extortionate price and then walked back to the hotel for...