Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı Asitane Restaurant — Restaurant in Fatih

Asitane is a concept restaurant. The concept is that it serves authentic, unique, researched recipes from Turkey's past, food that was served to Sultans and Potentates. Great concept. It and the positive reviews from TripAdvisor and my guide book drew me in. But I go out to eat good food, not concepts, and no amount of hype can mask the fact that this restaurant does not deliver its promise or seem to care about delivering it. Case in point: I ordered the signature dish, the stuffed melon. This favorite of some historic Sultan is a scooped out half melon filed with ground meat, spices and other admittedly tasty things. So far so good. But the melon that cradled the concoction was "raw": hard, unripe and tasteless. I had to cut it with a knife and fork. When I pointed this out to my waiter in response to his perfunctory, "How is everything?", he spouted an excuse that combined, I paraphrase, "We can't get ripe melon here" and "It's not the time of year for ripe melon." This outrageous lie could be refuted by stepping out the door of Asitane and walking a couple blocks to the nearest fruit market where sweet ripe melons were stacked like cordwood. How, I wondered and wonder still, could a restaurant that boasts the culinary exotica of antiquity dare to serve an "authentic" dish missing one of its essential flavor notes, the sweetness of ripe melon? It's like serving potato/leek soup without the leeks. Or Cherries Jubilee with only the Jubilee. Assuming, for the moment, the waiter was right and ripe melon was nowhere to be found, why was the dish on the menu? Why was it served? Customer service is not a concept the staff of Asitane is imbued with. "I'm sorry you're unhappy with the dish. Could I bring you another at no cost?" would have been an appropriate response from a well-trained waiter. Or, "Let me take the cost of the dish off your bill." No dice. Even the offer of a complimentary dessert and coffee would have worked wonders on my attitude. But that's not the all of it. There was the salad with the fancy name and pedigree (created c.1850) that consisted of a few leaves of lettuce on a plate drizzled with what looked and tasted like Ranch dressing. There was the fact that no one welcomed me when I arrived at the restaurant or even bothered to acknowledge that I'd made a reservation. Finally, a restaurant of Asitane's pretense to culinary loftiness (with lofty prices to match) should never, EVER, serve Lipton Tea. It's inexcusable. A $60+ lunch and I get Lipton tea? In Turkey? Land of tea? This restaurant is a fraud. Take the positive reviews with a large grain of organic sea salt. Read the negative reviews carefully and decide whether a trek to this beanery on the distant fringe of Istanbul is worth the time to find it and the bundle you'll drop. You can get better food for less closer to wherever you're staying...

Asitane is located in a storical place. Right next to kariye muzesi. Even though right now the curch is under reformation, you can also walk around too see some old houses. It’s our second visit to this restaurant. For us it’s interesting because they try to reproduce historycal recipes. The place is magnificent, very romantic and cozy. The service its nice too, trying always to make you feel comfortable. We had small tasting of their dishes since we were 6 and we wanted to try different stuff. We startes with the appetizers, different styles, all of them bread spreads, actually they were pretty good to start the dinner (probably the best ones were the hummus (antique recipe with cinnamon) and the lor cheese with pul biber). We also some salads, very refreshing, simple but tasty and good. Probably the best of the night was piruhi, this ravioli shaped pasta, with walnuts and cheese, pretty good. If i have to say a dish that I didn’t like, that would be the mushrooms, they were mushy, with an odd taste and the cheese (smoked) was the main flavour, not pairing too much together. We had also some couscous, that was nice, bigger size than usual couscous, a nice dough flavour but will be great if there was some more spiciness. Then we had two meat platters, antique kebabs which actually were allright but we were expecting much more. As a wines we’ve choose one shiraz from Pamukkale, pretty nice and a okuzgozu which i didnt take a photo but was also very nice. As a dessert we tried şeftali ka’a , preserved baked peach with a dough seasoned with cinnamon, walnuts and icecrean. Fresh, sweet and nice. Probably the best was the dough. As i said the service tries hard to make you confortable, that you can observe because they r asking everytime if everything is allright and they are interestes about you. As a gift (also they did it first time) you leave the restaurant with a homemade jam, this...

Owkey this might sound a bit confusing;

1. First of all they got an amazing turkish menu with variety of traditional foods

2. The interior design & the atmosphere is fascinating with turkish arts, offering both indoor & outdoor sitting

3. I ordered "Mahmoudiya stew" which was rather unique & unusual at the same time; Unique in a way that you don't find such dish around Istanbul (not as far as I've seen); And unusual as the combination of cinnamon, fruits, nuts & chicken as a mix stew while served with no bread & mildly cold (which I'm confused if it's supposed to be like this), but the taste was sweet good

4. I came around 7:30 PM which not much customers available; At the beginning when I entered there were 4 waiters available but for that fact there would have been a moment where I had to wait for a waiter appear so I could ask him for anything (like to the extend where I could formally just get up and leave the restaurant entirely in a gently manner); the phone was also ringing couple of time and no one would come to answer! I think I do get this that this is a luxury turkish restaurant and they just don't want to bother customers so much but at the same time it would be nice to check on the customer after sometime (at least trespass)

With all said, overall good different turkish food and enjoyed the atmosphere...