Hacı Abdullah Lokantası — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

A landmark place for traditional Turkish cuisine in Taksim area offering various local dishes at a cozy setting. It has been more than 15 years since my last visit and wanted to come back to see if they sustained the same quality in food and service. They have renovated the place since my last visit but kept the transitional atmosphere with the decorations and their signature pickle jars. We ordered a mix meze/zeytinyagli platter and Haci Abdullah plate that comes with 3 dishes; aubergine kebab, elbasan tava and begendili kebab. If you have hard time to choose and want to try different dishes, this is a quite good choice. All the three dishes were really good, keep up to the expectation. In order to try grill, we ordered their signature kebab which is not really different than kebab with pistachio. The meat quality was good but it was a bit dry, not par with their warm dishes. To accompany those, we ordered a mixed pickle which was decent but not that special. It had a bit too much garlic which became too dominant taste wise. For desserts, we ordered a fresh fig dessert and also two types of quince desserts, one with just cream and another one with banana and honey. The desserts were also of a high quality and brought back me the good memories. The service was decent but we weren’t very happy when we see that they charge for the second round of teas which you usually expect to be free in this kind of...

I don't always write reviews but I feel the need to warn people about the deceptive practices that they do here. DO NOT GO TO THIS RESTAURANT!!! Our first sign that things were going to be bad was when we saw another couple fighting with the waiter about their bill that they gave them. We thought maybe they charged them extra for the bread and water and they didn't know (which happens often in Istanbul). It turns out they were charged double what was on their menu plus items they did not order. When we got our check we were very surprised that the prices weren't the same as on the menu. We were charged almost double for our order also. We asked the waiter beforehand what the prices were and they showed us something totally different. They completely lied about the prices. We then asked for the menu so we can check the see the prices again, they declined and wouldn't give it to us. And acted as if they don't understand us. Then they later told us that this is the old prices. They are dishonest people and it's safe they would behave this way to tourist. Beware and advise everyone not to eat here unless you want to be scammed as well. there are much better places to eat on taksim with better service and food. Be careful of...

I read the reviews of tourists and foreigners regarding the food quality, service and customer care. As a native, I disagree with the negative comments about Hacı Abdullah.

The restaurant still keeps its authenticity and food quality since I started trying the dishes back in 1990s. It’s still one of the greatest examples of Ottoman Cuisine with diversified and original menu items in Istanbul.

My all time favorite dishes are lamb shank, lamb tandoori, iç pilav, and stuffed meat dolma as a main course.

As a starter at winter times, I highly recommend you to try the okra soup. It’s so hard to find this high-quality tiny okras in the market, and make a fantastic soup out of it.

As a dessert, we picked traditional Keşkül- the Ottoman way. A must try delicious pudding to reach Nirvana :)

Live along Hacı Abdullah! Appreciate your service and contribution to Turkish Cuisine!

Best time to visit is at lunchtime. Less crowd, less hustle, quality time and fast service.

You can have a look at the historic menus hanging on the walls to see the evolution of the...