Gallada — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

Catastrophically disappointing restaurant. I took my parents out to check out the new top seaside hotel in town and its offering - I didn’t expect I would go back home to have to eat again.

1- the rooftop design is problematic you can not see the sea due to the bushes and hedges they created. They have nice olive and pomegrenate trees but the view is totally blocked. So don’t expect views while seated.

2- the service is terrible. I can’t count the number of mistakes here but I can tell you that they brought all the dishes at random times leaving us hungry. I tried to order some extra dishes to satisfy our hunger and they said the kitchen was closed. Then they said they could accommodate then they said they can’t. Overall it was horrible horrible horrible. The food items randomly have carbs and sugar in them, despite asking you about your restrictions, allergies and me stating I don’t want to eat any carbs the waiter said “gluten free - ok” and we were speaking in Turkish. They don’t care and they are not trained. Your glass remains empty, you ask for water they don’t come back for 5 minutes. They had run out of tuna tartare and meatballs. I think such a hotel should not run out of dishes. The service failed at the waiter level, then his manager, and his manager’s manager and his manager. They all need to he retrained and should go to some team building event to not contradict each other and learn to work as a team.

3- the food portions are small. We asked how many salads and artichokes we should order the waiter told us it will be enough for us. It wasn’t. We were sharing leaves and trying to be nice to each other. Leaves don’t cost that much why are you stingy with your food. At least provide better guidance and say 1 salad can be shared by 2 maybe or so.

4- the chef should resign. The main dish on the menu us peking duck supposedly “fusioned” inspired by the silk road. That means they substitute the thin rice rolls with lavash bread and they provide an additional tahini sauce. But they also serve you a horribly bad mockery of a peking duck. I had peking duck in Beijing and this one tastes more like goose from Guangzhou. It wasn’t crunchy, it wasn’t good at all. And it was the most expensive dish. Supposedly it was good for 3-5 people based on the menu. I think it can feed max 2 people. And you need to order a main each to have enough food. They brought the duck cold and they randomly brought the second part of the duck cooked in some awkward shameful sweet tomato sauce or something. It tasted like Microwaved Chinese food. This Peking Duck is a huge fail. They removed it off the bill but still they ruined my night there is nothing that can compensate for that. The chef should be fired or he should resign. I would be ashamed if any Chinese person came to Istanbul to eat this they will have a really bad experience.

5- the salad, the artichoke, the asparagus, the eggplants were decent. I think they need to increase the portion size on those. As there is nothing to order on the menu. You end up starving as there isn’t much stuff to order. Or they should recommend to order more orders based on the quantity of people.

6- they didn’t offer us any desserts. I asked for a portion of shashlik and eggplants. And they flip floopped and I got really frustrated with them. To avoid any more conflict and frustration, I decided to ask for the bill.

7- everything was served with 30 minutes or so of spacing between the servings. My dad’s dish came 20 minutes before the duck and the duck came and they disappeared for 30 minutes to prepare it and it came back cold and unappetizing. Horrible experience. We were starving.

The hotel management should get rid of this chef, hire better staff, train the staff, and the food needs to be served faster, runners should serve drinks to make sure nobody has problems with drinks. They should redesign the terrace and remove the bushes. The food items if they want to make it fusion, hire Chinese people for Chinese dishes and do not use Turkish people at all to cook...

Dear Peninsula and Gallada Management;

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to express my sincere appreciation for the exceptional quality and service provided by your outstanding employees. First of all I would like to thank Mr. Mehmet Onur Yigit for reserving the best table for us. İn spite of his illness, he arranged everything I asked for our special day from the home. My experiences dining at Gallada Restaurant have consistently exceeded my expectations. From the moment we enter the restaurant, we were greeted with warmth and attentiveness by Azime hanım. Afterwards Guest relations executive Begum Hanım escorted us to the Rooftop Bar. She has exceptional customer service skills and a genuine passion for what she do. In addition that Mr. Necmettin Yener was knowing that we were in the Hotel and came to see and celebrate us there. It was big honor for me welcome like this. I really surprised and adored hotel internal communication skills as a hotelier. Although it was a restaurant reservation everyone was aware of we will be there. I really can not imagine how the hotel welcome the room guests. I would like to also thank to Mr. Okan. From taking orders to serving food, he always ensure that everything is done flawlessly. His ability to anticipate guest needs, demonstrates his dedication to providing exceptional service. His knowledge of the menu adds value to our dining experience. I also want to thank Mr. Çağan (Junior Sous Chef). We really enjoyed all the food and he came and visited us at the table. Hotel is too lucky to have all this outstanding staff. I also want to thank Doorman Ugur to make a nice orientation about the rooms and hotel. It was both my birthday and our second wedding anniversary with my wife. We really enjoyed yesterday and I wanted to share my feedback with the management. Everything was outstanding and flawless. I am grateful for this remarkable experiences.

As a negative I can just say when you wash your hands in the sink, you keep your hands under faucet but on the same time liquid hand soap automatically dripping since there is a sensor. İt is impossible to wash your hands without wasting the soap. Better to find a solution for this. Secondly it might be good to offer your guests a coffee or tea at the end of the dining as a complimentary. It is not about the money. Just in order to touch the guests and ends your courteous service above and beyond.

Again I want to thank all the staff and extend my sincere appreciation with the management. I look forward to continuing to dine at Gallada Restaurant and will undoubtedly recommend your establishment to friends and family.

Şahin...

A worthy attempt to create a fusion of Turkish and Asian cuisines, but a few steps behind delivering its promise -possibly because it has opened just a few days ago. Overall, the food is hit and miss, with main courses packing a lot of punch and appetizers having mixed success.

For appetizers, we found the artichoke quite good, while the tartar was a polarising dish; I loved the pepper and fried tendon while others found it too raw. The famous adana dumpling was tasty but ultimately just a very good adana kebap wrapped with a dumpling dough, great but kind of like beyti kebap, not enough fusion.

Mains were quite the talk though, with the crab menemen as the dish most successfully merging Asian and Turkish tastes. Seabass was very successful as well, almost indistinguishable from seafood dishes in China -though kind of suffering from the same problem as the Adana dumpling for being weak on the fusion side.

As for the service, it was quite attentive and helpful as one would expect from a restaurant of this caliber in Istanbul. However, I found it a bit disappointing that some drinks were missing and the waiter had a bit of an informal and salesman-like attitude. We were also seated far from the view, maybe because we were a bit late. Lastly, our personal plates were not changed throughout the dining, they got a bit messy at the end as this is a sharing-oriented restaurant.

A good attempt to mix two hard to reconcile cuisines overall, but I hope there will be further improvements. Would give a second try in winter to see how the menu has changed. Lastly, prices are generally normal for the high-end we are comparing this restaurant with, but wine prices are extortionary -almost double the comparable restaurants, pointing at the saddening phenomenon in this country of wine being seen as the rich...