Where tarhana dries above the tables in Teşvikiye

Istanbul was a quiet week in the magazine. One restaurant came in, and one was enough.

Tas Lokanta has been open in Teşvikiye since 2 July, at Büyükçiftlik Sokak No: 6/B, a small lokanta with a menu that changes daily, from Mali Pisgin and the team behind Lolita Tasting. Our team only filed it this week. That delay is exactly what these Sunday letters are for: we write about what Localtime added to the magazine, not only about places that happened to cut a ribbon between Monday and Saturday.

There is no printed menu. Instead: a chalkboard on the wall, wooden tables facing the open kitchen, lunch plates, meze, fermented sides and house charcuterie that shift with whatever arrived at the market that morning. Everything is made by hand and cooked the same day. The rhythm is built around lunch; for a table, call 0501 632 64 80. If you want to see what is hanging overhead before you walk over, @lokantatas is the live feed.

The detail you remember is the tarhana. Regulars who eat there through the week can watch it ferment and dry in plain sight, strung above the tables like laundry. Those who do not want to wait can buy the dried mix and finish it at home. It is a small, slightly theatrical touch, but it also makes the kitchen’s argument perfectly clear: this is a lokanta, not a concept restaurant. You come for the board. You stay because the food is being made in front of you — including the soup that will be ready next month.

Teşvikiye is hardly short of lunch. What it did not have until July was this particular combination of handmade plates and a drying rack you can point to from your seat. Localtime is a few weeks late, which is how catalogues work. The restaurant was already cooking. We have now put it on the record.

If you go once, go at lunch, sit where you can see the kitchen, and remember to look up. On Saturday night David Garrett plays Harbiye at 21:00, a short walk from Teşvikiye if you are already in the neighbourhood. The rest of the weekend — Friday on the water, Victory Day on Sunday — is in this weekend’s guide.