Sensus Wine Boutique Galata — Restaurant in Beyoğlu

Second time visiting this place. First, I don’t want to sound 100% negative, so you’ll get a clear picture of what I mean.

At the entrance, I was kindly welcomed, though the male manager asked the lady working there to take our coats (super weird in my country considering there were 5 of us).

The food was good, but overpriced (though not a lot). I ordered a pasta in parmesan wheel and it was more/less good value. But then, I asked them to add shrimp to it, to which they said - impossible. Quite strange don’t you think? The selection of pasta is super basic, where they take tomato sauce and pure pasta - mix it together and serve for 10 eur - OK price for Europeans, not OK for Turkish prices. I make the same dish at home for 10 eur except I can eat it for 3 days. And I don’t cause it’s too simple - BOTH FOR HOMECOOKING AND RESTAURANT FOOD! Then you pay same 10 eur for 5 shrimps - literally just five and OK tomato sauce. So, I mixed my lovely 5 shrimp and pasta myself, which was ridiculous (I just didn’t want to eat plain cheese pasta, sorry!). And I mean it, I’ve been to many recognized places locals visit (it’s not the one by the way) and they don’t charge as much for dishes that simple! Where they don’t even want to THINK and HELP you get what you want.

They focus on service (which is mediocre) and environment of the restaurant - NOT THE COMPLEXITY OF FOOD, so you understand. And they charge for same mediocre service twice in your bill - whether you want it or not. 50TL for each person and 10% on the whole bill. Separately, without telling you about it.

Now, the funny part.

The waiter brought the glass of wine immediately after I ordered - which I hate. In that kind of restaurant where we paid about 40€ for ‘service’ one should ask when to serve wine. So, I kindly asked him to take it away and serve together with pasta. He of course listened and brought literally the same glass later - warm already! Ridiculous! Wine’s not cheap here, I mean it is by bottle in the supermarket, not from their menu! Again - Europeans don’t listen to my moaning, but keep in mind it’s nothing like European wine. Though this place is probably one of the few where you can actually try something better than typical table wine they serve everywhere else in Istanbul.

Then, I had to do the maths and help my friends figure out how much they need to chip in, as we were splitting the bill between 5 of us. ME, MYSELF AND I did the accounting, not the managers! OH MY GOD! I asked them at the beginning to open a separate bill for all of us (and don’t start saying it’s too much for them to count everything for 5 people - there were 2 couples and a girlfriend of ours, they COULD DO IT themselves super easily). I spent 20 minutes! Literally! After having 2 glasses of wine it was the last thing I wanted to do and they(staff) were just looking at us doing all the work! I wish I had insisted on NOT PAYING FOR MEDIOCRE service then, but was tipsy and no one minded really.

Never coming back again, as there are many more places where you can spend extra and get a much better service AND food (high end, low end - all kinds of restaurants). If you want to eat homemade grandma style cooking (though my grandmother is way more advanced) then visit and enjoy their “service”! If not choose someplace else to spend extra.

Oh, and they close at 11. It’s not even possible to actually spend the evening there in a company. (Posting during...

What a fantastic hidden gem right next to Galata Tower! We went to take a look in the hotel and were surprised to find how affordable the menu was, considering we were expecting it to be eye-wateringly expensive. We didn't realise the restaurant itself was downstairs and when we were led down there were amazed at the lovely cosy warm atmosphere! The food was great and considering the location and setting, really well priced (certainly not cheap but not crazy expensive either). My one negative would be that when we went back a couple of days later around 1.45 we were initially told that the restaurant wouldn't open for another half an hour by the receptionist, but eventually after waiting until 2.30 we went downstairs ourselves and were told it would be another hour still! So maybe make sure to go only late afternoon/evening as it doesn't seem to be so much a lunchtime place (though we must have gotten lucky first...

The first time we've been there it was around 21h and the waiter informed us that they would be closing soon. We just wanted to have some wine, so it was ok. We were reminded by another waiter many times about their closing time. The next day we arrived over 2h before closing time, this time for dinner. We were again, and despite all the time we had, reminded that they were closing soon. The service was slow, impolite, the check was thrown on our table without us asking even though it was still 22h and the restaurant was full. When I went to the bar to ask for a cork to take the remaining wine with me, two of their waiters commented something in Turkish (which I don't speak) and shared a loud laugh. The food was mediocre. The pizza was so thin and crispy that I would suggest them to call it a flammekueche. The wine was good enough and the restaurant looks cozy, despite...