Tasting Notes
MYK is the restaurant of Mehmet Yalçınkaya, a judge on MasterChef Turkey. It is inside the convention centre of the WOW Istanbul hotel complex in Yeşilköy, Bakırköy, close to the former Atatürk Airport. The cooking takes familiar Anatolian dishes and ingredients — lamb, liver, kokoreç, vine leaves, local cheeses — and presents them as restaurant plates, many of them meant for sharing.
Slow-cooked meat and house pastrami
The main dishes lean on long cooking. Kuzu Omurga is a lamb saddle on the bone for two, served with a mushroom and pistachio pilaf. Gece pairs slow-cooked beef brisket with an aubergine leather (pestil) and mashed potato, and the pastrami is house-cured beef brisket served with sourdough bread and mustard. There are also lamb neck wrapped in a cheese-and-walnut pastry, a beef rib asado with creamy rice, and a butcher's köfte.
Sharing plates and breakfast
The sharing plates are the best way to try the kitchen. Cold ones include vine leaves stuffed with sour cherries, green apple cacık, lakerda (cured bonito) and a plate of local cheeses; hot ones include kokoreç with sweetbreads, liver cooked in goat's milk, keşli mantı with dried yoghurt cheese, and octopus with mastic. In the morning the restaurant serves Birlikte Kahvaltı, a large breakfast spread for the table.
“Book ahead for dinner, share Vişneli Yaprak Sarma and a hot plate to start, then order Gece or the Kuzu Omurga for two.”
LR Kitchen — field note