You may imagine how many good restaurants are in a 15 million people Metropolis. One of the best we were allowed to visit, the Restaurant Ulus 29, www.group-29.com, besides the Ulus Park.
The Restaurant has its own Club and Wine Cellar and has a wonderful view over one of the cutest places in Istanbul. The owner is a passionate gastronome and his wife is interior architect and made the property to a feast for the eyes. We got told all about the restaurant from the wonderful French Sommelier Estephane Vattepain and showed us around. He also introduced us to the Chef de Cuisine Mert Burcay Seran and we went into the kitchen. Mert has worked all over the world from London to the Caribbean before coming back to Turkey some years ago. Since then he is cooking here at the Ulus 29, enchanting his guests.

He told us how difficult it is to get the best international products in Istanbul. The country offers s big variety of delicious products, but the world traveller is asking also for white asparagus and truffles which are really hard to get on the local markets. Also the taxes for luxury products are very high which makes it quiet difficult to not give the prices further to the guests. Nevertheless Mert found ways to cross over modern with traditional and regional with international fine dining.
After a short introduction we started to cook some wonderful dishes. Softly grilled scallops with goose liver on a brioche and truffled spinach. Actually unbelievable expensive, but also unbelievable delicious!!! Then we had a lobster sashimi with Iranian caviar served on a block of Himalaya Salt. As dessert we got a chocolate soup with bananas and burned ice cream snow. As regional speciality Mert served us a mixed platter with Kofta (Turkish meat balls) and stripes from the fillet of beef seasoned with cumin and a mixture of yoghurt, cucumbers and toasted bread. We hope to get the recipes as soon as possible to make them online available for you.

After an impressive show around in the kitchen we Sommelier showed us his wine cellar. Estephane is a passionate expert and created and excellent stock of the best Turkish and international wines. He also suffers due to the high taxes on beer, spirits and wine. The Turkish government cashes 100% taxes on imported beer, 200% for wines, 300% for liquors and 400% on champagne. Handling its business correct the Restaurant has to offer the liquids all for more money than in other countries. But in general the Turkish wines made a big progress over the recent years and are absolutely in competition with the best international wines.

Later this evening more and more guests arrived and we decided to leave and to let the team of Ulus 29 make the other guests as happy as they made us. Very thanked them for the wonderful time with them and the fantastic food we enjoyed.

More photos you find here.