Garden Mezze — Restaurant in Fatih

tl;dr: This is a tourist trap restaurant with fake reviews, fake food and fake waiters who curse you when they turn around but will smile in your face. Avoid at any cost!

First of all, I’m someone who loves to try new restaurants but never review them (even when they are not good). But this is an exception.

Istanbul has a lot of really good restaurants to offer and many of them we found on either instagram or Google Maps. Latter one was so far always a trustable source. However, when trying to find a new restaurant for my cousins who also just arrived on this day we visited in Istanbul, who searched for something new to try and also give them the same experience I had for the one week.

So we picked this restaurant based on the crazy high ratings (4,9) during that time from around 2000 reviews. Again, usually I cross check the reviews to see whether they are fake, but since it wasn’t required so far, we just gave it a chance. When we arrived there and saw only tourists, the restaurant itself and the crazy high prices we already started to get a bad feeling, but still continued with ordering some food. During the waiting time one of my cousins and I started to check the reviews and noticed that there a quite a lot one star reviews hidden behind all the goo ones or ones with only 1 review at all. So we were certain at that moment that this will be not a good dinner.

Anyway, so the starters are coming, and the waiter with really short hair was already asking super fake and way to over the place. Always trying to much to keep a smile that was not honest.

The starters gave us mixed feeling. Some were really bad, some were okay. However, two things destroyed the whole night for us:

First: they always brought us warm bread, when we finished the ones on our table, which i a nice gesture. However, you could see over a small window / open area how they are being prepared. One of the guys in the kitchen touched everything, before touching the bread and handed over to the fake waiter. Which was quite discusting.

The second and most important point: the waiter misunderstood the orders of one of my cousins and me. We had both the same. So when we told him about that, he told us that everything is okay, they can give us the correct one and that it’s not a problem. So far, so good. However, the moment he turned around, expecting none of understand Turkish, he cursed our mothers in Turkish at least two times. So I call him again and told him about it, and of course tries to talk around, but we cancelled our two orders.

The rest of the group already received their food and started to eat. And it was a mess: the fries were not warm and not good. The kebab meat was way to fatty. It seems like nothing was fresh and only frozen stuff. Besides one dish that was actually good (the chicken), we didn’t finished anything (also including the starters)

The waiter who cursed us avoided us at that point. When we asked for the bill they tried to change our mind in offer us free tee (which is free in most of the other restaurants anyway). After we got up, the waiter who cursed us suddenly came also back to apologize for his behavior. We told him that this was the lowest thing ever happen to us in Istanbul and in general and that this is not exceptional especially in this area.

We left and paid around 4200 lira for 6 1/2 persons, which is crazy for this food and Istanbul itself (as long as you don’t go to a fancy restaurant we it is actually worth it).

So from my opinion I would strongly recommend against...

Fantastic! Such a nice staff and idea behind the place, not to mention the food. You can sit indoors or in a semi-indoor garden which is cool and pleasant in contrast to the otherwise draining heat outdoors in Istanbul. The menu has a lot of alternatives, and strives to introduce local dishes, but also has much else, which is great if you are not used to the Turkish cuisine. The food is not very expensive to other countries' standards, but damn is it delicious! Me and a friend had been in Turkey for several days, eating good food on smaller places but not always knowing what we ate or got much variation and it was often on the busy street. Coming to Garden Mezze was truly amazing. We were able to relax, try scrumptious Turkish dishes and getting explained on English what it was. Personally I recommend eating a Meze plate or Böreks (or both) for appetizer, and apple tea is great. If you just arrived to Istanbul, this is a great place to start with, and even if you've been here for a while it is definetely worth the visit since you can discover more food and it is simply so tasty and not too expensive.

A special thanks to Murat who took care of us on our first visit with much...

Do not be deceived by the ordinary entrance of this restaurant. Was welcomed by the boss/manager who enthusiastically showed us to our alfresco dining seats. Since it was winter, the restaurant had its heaters switched on to warm its customers.

Ordered the stuffed calamari and chicken kebab dishes. The dishes look way better in real life than in pictures.

The chicken kebab came with roasted onions and vegetables, some flatbread, rice mixed with what I think were barley grains and sweet potato and a creamy dip for the chicken. Kebab tasted something like tandoori chicken and was succulent and tasty. Rice was well cooked and the roasted onions were really delicious.

Star of the show was the stuffed calamari with a cheesy sauce. Think it was the best I have ever had. Calamari was extremely fresh and was not chewy at all. The stuffing was a mix of vegetables and meats. Together with the cheesy sauce, it was a perfect dish. Definitely would come back here for this again.

Was served warm pomegranate and apple juice and semonila at the end of the meal free or charge too. What a pleasant place to have dinner, the...