Hatay Restaurant 1967

Hatay has been run by the Demir family since 1967, on Bağdat Caddesi's Bostancı end since 1986, and functions as the corridor's institutional memory: Cemal Süreya kept a regular table here, and the guest-book tradition he started with the painter Hamit Dereli was eventually published as a book. The kitchen argues its own case, yaprak ciğer arriving in a clay pot with butter and pul biber, proper lakerda, paçanga böreği, a baked helva to finish. Nothing about the room performs; the walls carry half a century of writers instead. This is the meyhane you take someone to when you want to show what the culture actually is.