Pandeli
- Getting there
- Upstairs inside the Spice Bazaar, Eminönü
Why it’s in the log
Pandeli Çobanoğlu, an Anatolian Greek who'd come to Istanbul to work as a porter around the Spice Bazaar, started out selling meatball sandwiches from a wooden shack before opening a proper restaurant on the same spot in 1901. Writers, politicians and eventually Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became regulars, and the restaurant moved into its current room above the bazaar's entrance after a 1955 upheaval forced it out of its original address.
The dining room is the reason people still climb the stairs: 17th-century-style İznik tiles in blue and turquoise, painted ceilings, and windows onto the Golden Horn and Galata Bridge. The kitchen runs classic Ottoman dishes — hünkar beğendi, stuffed mussels, a cold aubergine salad that's been on the menu since long before "Ottoman revival" was a restaurant trend.
Lunch only, and it closes on Sundays with the rest of the bazaar around it — plan the visit accordingly rather than as an evening stop.
“Atatürk ate here, and so did half the Ottoman-era intelligentsia — the İznik tilework hasn't dated a day of it.”
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