I can’t remember if there were blinds, but if so I am sure they would have been drawn. The message, however subliminal, was “we are so cool we don’t even have to look at the view” or “we’d rather look at ourselves.” It seems, in retrospect, no coincidence that it was around this time that Istanbul’s well-heeled population started moving away from neighborhoods that views to gated communities that didn’t. People stopped swimming in the Bosporus or the Sea of Marmara (where there were views) and started jumping into swimming pools (no views). Up until then, İstanbul was all about views. Social standing was defined not by who your father was but the quality of the view from his balcony. The highest pleasure the city had to offer was dinner on the Bosporus where the most prized ingredient alongside the melon and white cheese was the sight of water, framed in the lights of the city beyond and with a stillness only punctuated by a passing freighter or the occasional clink of glasses filled with rakı. Views defined the good life, but like everything else even views are subject to fashion.
More than a decade has passed since I went to Memo’s. Many of the couples that moved out to housing estates like Kemer Country or Alsit are now divorced (no views and not much else to do), and are moving back into town. But of course, İstanbul has become bigger and more sophisticated. There is still a chance of grabbing a view of the Bosporus, but the opportunities are fewer and frankly there is less to look at. The city is uglier, the ultimate İstanbul hypocrisy being to strive for that extra bit of view regardless of the spectacle one appears to others. So instead of looking across the water, İstanbul is looking at itself.
It is a thought that occurred to me as I sat in a deeply fashionable restaurant housed in a glass cage on the umpteenth floor of the Marmara Pera Hotel. Mikla is a decent restaurant that serves good food in modest portions. The lighting is confined to subtly defined pools so as not interfere with the lights of the city outside. Even the customers, men and women alike, seem to dress in black so as not to cause distracting reflections in the windows. But it’s not an İstanbul view of seagulls and lapping waves but a Manhattan, lord-of-all-you-survey power-view of twinkling lights. It is a long drop, metaphorically, if you tossed a bread roll out the window to the cobbled twisty streets of Beyoğlu below.
The same is true of the panorama from the terrace of the equally fashionable “360” restaurant down the road. Instead of traveling down the Bosporus to get away from it all (circumnavigating traffic jams as you can), you simply get into a lift to the top floor. It’s a different ethos from the days when the waiter brought a wooden tray with plates full of meze. There is actually a dish on the menu called avant-garde kebab re-mix, which is not all that great of an improvement on the golden oldie kebabs on which it is based.
There are still places where you can sample old İstanbul. Kordon in Çengelköy boasts a Bosporus meal as ritually pure as a Japanese tea ceremony and has a view across a dark expanse of water to the historic skyline. İstanbul Modern, which I wrote about last week, also boasts a good restaurant open until midnight. The menu is designed by the Borsa kitchen and is itself a re-mix of Western European and Turkish cuisine. It has a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere, in part because its equally panoramic view is more down to earth.
