Dilara Erbay is not your run of the mill restaurant owner. She is a professional food stylist/artist. Erbay also has a degree in political science and has taught gastronomy. She is a trained rescue diver, has worked as an underwater guide and did her chef apprenticeship in New York. Erbay has catered and styled professionally for many events, including the İstanbul Biennial. She has worked on food art publications and is now the mother of a toddler. I’ve heard that she has traveled to more than 90 countries around the world, in many of which she has also resided and opened restaurants. Together with her partner, Mike Norman, a renowned chef from South Africa, and her husband, Ahmet Buğdaycı, a designer/curator and festival organizer, she opened Abracadabra.
You first approach the restaurant through its outdoor cafe on the Bosporus and then turn into a side alley and continue to the entrance of the main dining room. The floors have original tiles, and the ceilings are high. If Abracadabra was in Beyoğlu it would have a very different feeling, maybe more stagy, but standing in a residential Bosporus neighborhood, it makes you feel quite at home and relaxed. It’s airy and the view is truly spectacular.
After climbing the wooden staircase you arrive in the kitchen -- it’s the only open kitchen in the city where you can eat and watch either the chefs or the ships. The next floor up is simple and elegant with some original artistic furniture. The last floor is funkier with a ‘50s refrigerator, colorful chairs, some toys and crayons for the kids. On this floor there’s a very nice small balcony for more private meetings and summer evenings.
Erbay has found her alternative to the industrialization of food. Playfully experimenting with traditional Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern dishes, she uses the most natural ingredients and presents them with an artistic touch. Each dish is a delight. Erbay purchases local beef from Arnavutköy and makes sure that the chickens she uses are free range. Furthermore, the olive oil is from friends in Ayvalık, the bread is homemade on the premises and the produce is organic. Without being a whole foods fanatic (there is a full bar downstairs) you can enjoy a slow or fast food experience. There is an excellent salmon çiğ köfte or you can try the herbs and lor (curd cheese) mantı. The falafel is only YTL 7. There is a toasted sandwich made with cheese from Malatya, spinach and pomegranate sauce, as well as slow-cooked duck, grilled bonfile (sirloin steak) with zahter sauce or octopus cooked in red wine. You can choose from a couple of surprise dishes, and the desserts are as interesting as the main dishes. I tried an elegantly presented “uykusuz her gece” (every sleepless night), a cold dessert with some hints of curry and something I would highly recommended. The breakfast menu is just as exciting. There is a rich breakfast for YTL 20 with limitless tea that includes homemade bread, homemade rosehip marmalade, olives from Aydın, cream from Afyon, honey from Kars, herbal cheese from Van, cucumbers from Çengelköy and much more. You can have extras, from waffles to Beluga caviar.
Abracadabra is a restaurant with a concept. The food is presented as art and the art displayed is about food. People are brought together through food and art. There are changing exhibitions in which young artists are promoted along with established ones. There is talk of performances, photography, sculpture and design. Erbay enjoys inviting chefs to join in and she’s open to proposals. The theme is food.
The opening art exhibition is by a young Ukrainian artist, Lesya Demchenko. Demchenko has mastered a technique using cardboard to create images of İstanbul life, and food, of course. (www.lesyademchenko.com).
Here is a recipe for falafel, a very old Middle Eastern delicacy claimed by the Christian Copts and later on by the Egyptians. They were originally popular during Lent when eating meat was forbidden.
www.dilaraerbay.com
www.abracadabra-ist.com
Falafel
500 grams chickpeas
1 bunch fresh coriander
1 bunch parsley
3 onions
5 cloves garlic
1 cup tahini
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
Soak the chickpeas in cold water over night and chop all the ingredients very finely. First put the soaked chick peas in the blender for 10 seconds; then add the other ingredients, and blend them together for 20 seconds. Refrigerate for three hours. Then form them into balls and fry them. Serve with tahini sauce.
Karkade (hibiscus flower drink)
100 grams hibiscus flowers (dried)
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
250 grams sugar
1 liter water
Combine all the ingredients and boil. After the mixture cools, refrigerate it. Add water if too sweet, and serve with ice and fresh mint.
Benzer Haberler 
Where to eat
