One of the best things about eating out in Istanbul is the amazing variety and quality of seafood in Turkey. Here are the top seafood restaurants in Istanbul, selected Ugur Ilgar, founder of LuxuryIstanbul. Because these restaurants are extremely popular with locals, make sure you reserve in advance. LACIVERT (Address: Körfez Caddesi No: 57/A Anadoluhisari, Istanbul, Tel: [...]
If you are craving Asian food in Istanbul (yes, it happens sometimes), then check out these three outstanding places chosen by Ugur Ilgar, founder of LuxuryIstanbul, a luxury travel company that organizes tailor-made holidays and special tours. HAKKASAN (Address: Buyukdere Cad. No: 206 Kanyon AVM Levent, Istanbul, Tel : +90 212 319 8888) Hakkasan is located on [...]
Looking for a restaurant in Istanbul where the young, hip and fashionable congregate? Here’s our list of the hottest places in the city: REINA (Muallim Naci Cad. No:44 Ortakoy, Istanbul, Tel: +90 212 259 59 19) Pearl of the Bosporus and one of the most popular in the city. The Mediterranean and Turkish dishes are [...]
Making its debut this month, the Istanbul EDITION Hotel by Hirsch Bedner Associates (HBA) is a luxurious lifestyle hotel located in the luxury district of Istanbul. There are a total of 78 rooms, all of which are designed to please leisure and business travelers. The rooms are 420 square feet (39 square metres) and combine [...]
If you are in Istanbul, you must pay a visit to a Turkish hammam (a traditional Turkish bath). A Turkish bath is exactly the perfect thing to do after a tiring day of sightseeing. This tradition has been passed down from the Romans to the Byzantines to the Turks. The Islamic emphasis on personal cleanliness and purification [...]
One of the greatest pleasures of visiting Istanbul is eating Turkish food. Turkish cuisine ranks among the top five in the world because of the variety of ingredients used in their dishes, the inventiveness of the way they are prepared, the exquisite and unusual mix of flavours, and the artistry of their presentation. The origins of [...]
Few hotels in the world can match the Pera Palace in Istanbul for its history and grandeur. Opened for the first time in 1895 to accommodate passengers on the Orient Express, the hotel received guests such as Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey; Greta Garbo (who reportedly stayed for 21 days); and Agatha Christie, who [...]
If you are looking for a boutique hotel in Istanbul, check out The House Hotel Nisantasi, located in Nisantasi, the most upscale neighborhood of the city, where you will find excellent restaurants and fancy designer shops. This neighborhood is the city’s “see-and-be-seen” hangout with lively bars and restaurants featuring beautiful young things dressed in impossibly [...]
If you are going to Istanbul and want to stay in a historic luxurious hotel, check out the A’jia Hotel, right on the shores of the Bosphorus. Located in a restored 1870s Ottoman mansion, the hotel has only 16 rooms (six of which are suites), with stunning views across water. The suites are range in [...]
I would like to draw your attention to a multimedia presentation in the New Yorker about Turkish food by Elif Batuman. The piece focuses on Turkish chef Musa Dağdeviren and his restaurant Çiya Sofrasi, which happens to be my favorite restaurant in the city (see Mapplr review of Çiya Sofrasi). Çiya Sofrasi is not in the main [...]