Cezayir Restaurant

Cezayir Restoran is like an oasis in the middle of İstanbul, Taksim. It takes 5 to 10 minutes to reach there after turning left at Galatasaray. It is very near to entrance of Cezayir (Algeria) Street. Building, established at 1901, used to be a school that children of Italian workmen attended.

After entering historical building and descending too many stairs, one can reach garden floor. Garden is more like a winter garden. Due to glass case, it is not very possible to see sky or head of centennial trees. However, as my fried put it, no one desires leaves or worms at his or her table. One should look the positive way :)

We chose this place in order to have dinner during Ramadan together with my friends I haven't seen for a while. This place is famous for serving traditional Ottoman dishes in a new, modern and tasty way. In fact, they position themselves as an experimental and traditional Turkish cuisine. Besides garden, there are restaurant, cafe and bar inside the building. Interior sections seem to have a heavier atmosphere according to photos at their web sites. On the other hand, garden has a more cheery and comfortable environment as well as being decent. I liked eating at wooden tables with their tops leather covered. Waiters were cheerful, helpful and interested. It was a minus that they do not serve any kind of soup. However, delicatessens we chose were very successful. Chickpea meatball (Nohut Köfte), mashed Crete (Girit Ezme), fried hellim cheese wrapped in leaves (Kızarmış Hellim Peynirli Sarma)... Despite I am not good with chickpea I loved the chickpea meatball the most. Fried hellim cheese wrapped in leaves is also an interesting and delicious taste. On the other hand, I prefer mom version of mashed Crete. Raisin and peanut beseem to it. This one has a more bitter taste. We focused on 2 main dishes: chicken with prune (Kuru erik soslu tavuk) and smoked salmon. Actually, I tried and liked them both. I always loved meat served with sweet sauces. We ordered Green Apple Parfaitwith fig sauce ( İncir soslu yeşil elmalı parfe) and milk pudding with shredded dough (Tel Kadayıflı Muhallebi) as dessert. It was great discovery for me to taste these 2 new desserts. For people who don't know, parfait is like a kind of ice cream. A Maraş ice cream... I should admit that we made too much noise while trying to eat it:) So, you should have a knife or wait it to melt a little before starting to eat. Also, milk pudding is not juicy as we expected. It has a chocolate base, top with shredded dough and it is served as a solid slice like a cheesecake. Both were delicious indeed.

Water is continuously served during the meal. This is positive. On the other hand, Turkish coffees which we drank in the end of the dinner were below average both in terms of taste and presentation. Most of the comments on Foursquare, a location based social network, were about the bad taste of Turkish coffees. A venue of Turkish cuisine should take attention to this weakness.

Consequently, Cezayir Restaurant is a decent, calm and delighted place where you can taste surprising delicious dishes and in the meantime chat with your friends with joy. Prices are average and above average. Transportation is easy. By the way, I guess celebrities also like this place. Beautiful actress Hale Soygazi and historian Murat Bardakçı were sitting next to us with their friends.

Web site of Cezayir Restaurant: https://www.cezayir-istanbul.com