Culinary Tour: Istanbul 2024

This tour was a deep dive into Istanbul and the many cultures that intersect in this ancient city. Guided by local expert Gonca Karakoc and author and teacher Özlem Warren (who's a regular guest at the Milk Street Cooking School and on Milk Street radio), we learned to look at markets through the eyes of a local. Milk Street’s Director of Education Rosemary Gill also joined the tour, learning and cooking alongside us.

Over the course of a week, we dove into the regional foods of Türkiye, with a special focus on Özlem’s home region of Hatay in Southern Turkey. We learned to navigate the bustling Grand Bazaar like a local, picking out everything from the best coffee pots to the freshest saffron. Walking through the city’s quieter neighborhoods, we sampled everything from tahini and pistachios to stuffed mussels and Maras chiles at exclusive tastings. We saw how farmers continue to thrive by farming in the city’s ancient moats and met members of Istanbul’s Sephardic Jewish community, whose roots there extend back to the Spanish Inquisition. The capstone included a boat tour of the Bosporus (which divides Europe and Asia as well as Istanbul) and dinner at Çiya, the headquarters of chef Musa Deviren’s quest to preserve Turkish culinary traditions nearly lost to migration.