Istanbul kebab kerikeri

19/06/2025

17/06/2025

Hello everyone, due to staff shortages, we are temporarily closed on Mondays until further notice. Thank you for your understanding!

17/04/2025

Easter Opening Hours

Wishing you all a happy and relaxing Easter!
We’ll be open on selected days during the Easter weekend.

Happy Easter from all of us!

23/12/2024

Dear valued customers here are our Christmas and New Year opening hours. Merry Christmas and happy new year 🥳

12/11/2024

We are delighted to serve you 7 days a week from 10.00 to 21.30.

07/11/2024

Dear valued customers, we are delighted to present our updated menu!

30/08/2024

We’re proud to share that we’ve been named a Recommended Restaurant for 2024 by Restaurant Guru. This wouldn’t be possible without the support of our wonderful customers and the hard work of our dedicated team. Thank you for being a part of our journey. We look forward to welcoming you again soon.

25/08/2024

The exact origin of these sweets is yet to be definitively determined, partly due to the origins being fiercely contested amongst Greeks and Turks.

Turkish claims

According to the Hacı Bekir company, Bekir Efendi, named Hacı Bekir after performing the Hajj, moved to Constantinople from his hometown Kastamonu and opened his confectionery shop in the district of Bahçekapı in 1777. He produced various kinds of candies and lokum, later including a unique form of lokum made with starch and sugar. The family business, now in its fifth generation, still operates under the founder’s name.

Questioning of Turkish claims

Tim Richardson, a historian of sweets, has questioned the popular attribution of Hacı Bekir as the inventor of Turkish delight, writing that “specific names and dates are often erroneously associated with the invention of particular sweets, not least for commercial reasons”. Similar Arab and Persian recipes, including the use of starch and sugar, predate Bekir by several centuries. The Oxford Companion to Food states that although Bekir is often credited with the invention, there is no hard evidence for it.

Greek claims

Some sources indicate that the concept of Loukoumi dates back to Byzantine times. Regardless, the sweet may have been re-invented since, though this is subject to heavy debate.

17/08/2024

A type of ayran was developed in Central Asia and historically was consumed by Turkic tribes. According to Nevin Halıcı, ayran was consumed by Turks in Central Asia.A c. 1000 CE Turkic dictionary, Dīwān ul-Lughat al-Turk, defines ayran as a “drink made out of milk”.
Similar drinks exist elsewhere, such as doogh (دوغ), an Iranian fermented drink that has long been a popular drink and was consumed in ancient Iran (Persia). Described by an 1886 source as a cold drink of curdled milk and water seasoned with mint, its name (Doogh) derives from the Persian word for milking, dooshidan.
Other similar drinks include t’an (Armenian: թան) in Armenia and lassi in the Indian subcontinent; however, they can differ from doogh.

Regional names of the drink and its variations are: Albanian: dhallë; Arabic: شنينة šinīna or عيران eayran; Kyrgyz: chalap; Azerbaijani: ayran; Bulgarian: айрян Kurdish: çeqilmast, dew, do; Pashto: شلومبې shlombey; Persian: دوغ, romanized: dūgh; Syriac: ܕܘܓ̄ܐ daughe; Greek: ξινόγαλα xinogala or αριάνι ariani; Pontic Greek: αΐραν ayran; Turkish: ayran.

06/08/2024

History of Doner Kebab

In the Ottoman Empire, at least as far back as the 17th century, stacks of seasoned sliced ​​meat were cooked on a horizontal rotisserie, similar to the cağ kebab. The vertical rotisserie was introduced no later than the mid-19th century. The town of Bursa, in modern-day Turkey, is often considered the birthplace of the vertically roasted döner kebab. According to Yavuz İskenderoğlu, his grandfather İskender Efendi as a child in 1850s Bursa had the idea of ​​roasting the lamb at his father’s restaurant vertically rather than horizontally; it was a success, and some years later it became known as döner kebap. However, he may have been preceded by Hamdi Usta from Kastamonu around 1830.

A version popular in the Arab world became known as shawarma. By at least the 1930s it had been brought overseas, and was sold in restaurants in Mexico by Lebanese immigrants. Doner kebab likely arrived in Greece in the 1920s with the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, later transforming into gyros.
It was not until a century after its invention that döner kebab was introduced and popularized in Istanbul, most famously by Beyti Güler. His restaurant, first opened in 1945, was soon discovered by journalists and began serving döner and other kebab dishes to kings, prime ministers, film stars and celebrities. It has been sold in sandwich form in Istanbul since at least the mid-1960s.
The döner kebab and its derivatives served in a sandwich form as “fast food” came to worldwide prominence in the mid to late 20th century. The first doner kebab shop in London opened in 1966 and they were a familiar sight in provincial cities by the late 1970s, while gyros was already popular in Greece and New York City in 1971. A Greek-Canadian variation, the donair, was introduced in 1972, eventually becoming the official food of Halifax, and spreading across the country. By the 1960s, the taco al pastor in Mexico had evolved from the shawarma.

02/08/2024

Just a heads up! Starting from Monday, the 5th of August, Istanbul Kebab will be closed for a few weeks for staff holidays and some renovations. Thanks for your understanding, and we can’t wait to serve you again soon in our refreshed space.

25/07/2024

Baklava is a traditional dessert that originated in the Ottoman Empire. The earliest written records indicate that it was made in the 15th century at the Topkapi Palace. Baklava became a significant part of Ottoman cuisine and spread to various regions as the empire expanded. It is made by layering thin sheets of dough with crushed nuts, such as walnuts, hazelnuts, or pistachios, and then sweetened with syrup. Today, baklava is enjoyed in many countries, including Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, and the Middle East.

Have you still not tried our baklava?