Istanbul: Delicious Recipes from the Heart of the City
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For cookbook author and culinary instructor Özlem Warren, Istanbul’s cuisine is defined less by any single dish than by the city’s layers: regional traditions, street food, meze culture, bakery fare, and home cooking all existing side by side. In this collection, she explores those intersecting influences through more than eighty approachable recipes adapted for the home kitchen.
From breakfast houses and neighborhood bakeries to the street taverns called meyhanes and grilled street food stalls, the book takes us through the city’s different food settings. Recipes include Circassian chicken with walnut sauce, smoked eggplant pastries, mussel rice pilaf, and syrup-soaked semolina sweets, alongside simpler vegetable dishes and meze intended for sharing.
Warren balances traditional preparations with practical adaptations that make the cuisine accessible outside Turkey, often streamlining labor-intensive dishes without losing their defining flavors. Throughout, the book emphasizes the sociability of Istanbul cooking: long meals built around small plates, grilled meats, yogurt sauces, herbs, and conversation.
Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.
Published on May 12, 2026
