Ottoman, which offers samples from Antakya and Antep cuisines, is a restaurant chain that became famous with its old location in Balat and later spread across the city, with most of its branches located in shopping malls. The branch in Nişantaşı City’s shopping mall isn’t very large, so it allows you to select what you’ll eat by peering into the display window. The menu changes seasonally, with authentic regional dishes such as şiveydiz (a souplike dish made with yogurt, garlic, meat and chickpeas) available in the spring. The winter menu is heavy on wheat-based dishes, while the summer menu features a lot of vegetables. Some of the tasty olive oil dishes are grilled eggplant served with drained yogurt; green Nizip olives served in a cold stew with lemon thyme sprouts, pomegranate molasses and walnuts; hummus; haydari (yogurt spread with garlic); and regional cheese sürk made with seven kinds of spices. Kaytaz, a börek from Antakya served with pomegranate sour, is flavourful. Make sure to leave room for the Ottoman beğendi kebap, made with char-grilled eggplant brought daily from the branch in Fulya, as it’s forbidden to burn coal in City’s Shopping Mall. To top your meal off, try keşir, or purple cezerye (a dessert made with carrots that has the consistency of lokum), to double your energy. While the food consistently tastes good at Ottoman City’s, there are the occasional delays in service due to the hectic atmosphere of the shopping mall. Still, the variety of flavourful food offered here is bound to have those searching for regional foods around Nişantaşı heading to Ottoman.
From the Menu
Eggplant with yogurt 7 TL
Kaytaz börek 5 TL
Ottoman beğendi kebap 25 TL
Yuvalama soup 10 TL
Keşir 6 TL