Michelin's Stars for Istanbul Are Late But Welcome
The city has been a gastronomic capital for centuries, but Turkish cuisine could use the lift.
Fatih Tutak on the job.
Photographer: Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images
Announcing the Michelin Guide’s first list of Istanbul restaurants last week, Gwendal Poullennec, the international director for the guides, said the city’s culinary scene had “simply astounded our team.” Me, I’m astounded that they were astounded — and that it took Michelin this long to bestow its attention on one of the world’s preeminent gastronomic capitals.
Istanbul, the seat of the highly epicurean Byzantine and Ottoman empires, has had fair claim to that title for well-nigh 1,700 years, many centuries longer than most of the cities that Michelin has deemed worthy of its imprimatur. That Washington — no, seriously, Washington — got a guide before Istanbul should make you stop and ponder about Poullennec’s priorities. (And while you’re at it, chew on the irony that the first list for the American capital included, in the “Bib Gourmand” category, a Turkish restaurant.)