Situated in an old two-storey house in Koşuyolu, this brand new meyhane is a gem among a handful of fish restaurants offering more or less the same meals. The mostly wooden interior gets a touch of colour from vintage movie posters, both Turkish and international, that hang along its walls. Still, our recommendation would be to walk right past them and seat yourself in the cosy garden, underneath the space heaters.
Sakar Zeybek offers a daily menu of Aegean and Greek recipes, made with ingredients that are almost all brought from the owners’ homeland of Muğla on the southern coast. With light fasıl music playing in the background, we start on our dinner of generously portioned meze: a simple dish of vermicelli with kaşar cheese and walnuts is a good starter, as is the Bulgarian meze of peppers, parsley and curd cheese. Our top choice, however, would have to be the yogurt-topped kebap rolled in filo dough. The perfectly seasoned eggplant and lamb stew, served piping hot, is just as great a find. The meze cost about 6.5 TL on average, while you’ll pay 13 to 16 TL for main courses and around 20 TL for grilled options.
Since this is a meyhane, the most frequently consumed drink is obviously the rakı – to do the space justice, we highly recommend ordering a bottle of Sarı Zeybek and making a night of it with friends and family.