Culinary Backstreets of the Bazaar Quarter

Istanbul’s Bazaar Quarter is one of the world’s biggest open-air commercial centers, crowned by the planet’s largest covered market, the Grand Bazaar. It is not only a sprawling marketplace specializing in everything from knitting yarn to knockoff purses, but a historic center of small craftsmen who still carry on their tradition in the atmospheric caravanserais — Ottoman-era trading posts — that dot this area. With all of the shopping, people rarely open their eyes to the culinary treasures of this area, which are well-protected by the merchants and craftsmen who dine here everyday.
On our Grand Bazaar food tour, we’ll start the day with a full breakfast celebrating the best of the dairy highlands in Eastern Anatolia, followed by an unusual wedding soup from Konya. Then we’ll make our way through the garment district to a cluster of Ottoman-era hans (traders’ inns), home to a guild of traditional craftsmen in their tiny workshops. There we will have an unforgettable, freshly baked pide before grazing our way in, out and around the Grand Bazaar, taking in a perfect kebab, a bite of Edirne-style liver, and a spread of seasonal, vegetarian mezes. We will drink tea and Turkish coffee in out-of-the-way places, while the sweet notes on this route begin with kadayıf, an Arabian-influenced love letter from the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, and end with a delicious milk-soaked cake that made its way from Albania to the Istanbul. It’s Istanbul’s Bazaar Quarter as it’s never been seen — or tasted — before.