One such venture is the Galata Kiva Han, a joint effort of Adnan Şahin, a keen supporter of Anatolian cuisine, and Önder Köse of Lacivert fame.Thoughts of Kiva Han bring forth images of shelves stacked with jars of exotic coffees, flooding the olfactory senses with a strong biting aroma and eliciting a response from the salivary glands. The mind travels, and visions of turbaned men sitting in the world's first coffee houses opened in İstanbul in the late 15th century hint at the importance of coffee drinking within the social strata of Ottoman life.
It therefore comes as a surprise to find a restaurant focusing on Anatolian cuisine named after a coffee house. The introductory pages of Kiva Han's Web site (www.galatakivahan.com) just add to the puzzle, mentioning the first coffee house in Tahtakale, clarifying that the word Kiva is quite a foreign sound for Turkish speakers and stating that it is of Uzbek origin. After looking through the Web site's pages, the link between traditional Turkish flavors and Kiva Han still eludes, apart from the fact that both are steeped in history.
So, keeping in mind that coffee is one of the last things I am likely to find, the décor and quietly elegant surrounds of the restaurant come as a soothing surprise after the hustle and bustle of the walk down from Tünel. A browse of the dishes on offer, salads under a solid protective cover, dolma, soups and other dishes set behind the counter and you would not be far from thinking you had stepped into a variation of the well-known Çiya restaurants in Kadıköy. The presentation of many of the dishes is the same, the ingredients appear similar and closer scrutiny of the menu reveals many similarities.
This all makes sense given that the intent of Kiva Han is to bring the tastes of Anatolia to the table, as Çiya has successfully done. Kiva Han's menu boasts a great array of unusual tastes from throughout the land: kale soup (kara lahana çorbası) from Trabzon, rolled leaves with broad bean filling (baklalı sarma) from Amasya, leaves stuffed with ricotta-style cheese (lor sarma) from Bayburt, bulgur pilaf with lentils (mercimekli bulgur pilavı) from Çorum, tomatoes preserved in syrup (domates tatlısı) from Bozcaada and revani (cake soaked in syrup) from İstanbul. A range of classical sherbet made from ingredients such as rosehips (kuşburnu) and tamarind (demirhindi) add to the menu.
My lunch companion and I decided to sample a soup, a range of the dolma on offer and a selection from the salad bar. To my horror, once the cook plated the dolma, he placed them in a microwave hidden beneath the bench top, as he did the soup. Perhaps I am a bit harsh, but the whole concept of bringing Anatolian food to the tables of inner İstanbul is surely not meant to rely on cooking in advance and regenerating until barely lukewarm before serving. It was not just my sensory response that went into spasm, it was the thought that the food that was now before me had more than likely been cooked hours beforehand, perhaps even yesterday, had been sitting at room temperature or slightly higher for an unknown period and had just passed deeper into the danger zone of rapid bacterial growth.
With the thought that I might regret it later, I started to try the food. The soup was, as I expected, barely warm; however, the slight hint of lamb carried the flavors of the yogurt and added to the rice texture. Unfortunately, each of the five different kinds of dolma melted into one large mouthful of mush, so overcooked that they had lost any real texture, their flavor dissipating into the air with each moment it had sat waiting to be ordered. Gulping water to dispel the psychological aftertaste, I ventured onto the salad. Again, all at room temperature, the flavors were individual but somehow lacking. We were three-quarters of the way through when I noticed an additional protein source of the thick black hair variety. I immediately stopped eating. Neither my lunch companion nor I had wiry black hair!
All in all, our experience at the new Galata Kiva Han was extremely disappointing, and on second thought, I should have kept walking down the road to Karaköy, leapt on the ferry to Kadıköy and headed to my favorite table at Çiya. Or settled for some lahmacun from the tiny shop on the way down. I had expected more.
My ratings
Food: 3/10
Ambience: 6/10
Service: 4/10, I had to repeatedly ask for çok açık çay (very weak tea).
Price: reasonable, our small lunch menu was TL 25 between us, but we refused to pay for the salad.
Would I return: no, no reason to!
Galata Kiva Han
Galata Kulesi Meydanı No. 4, Beyoğlu, 0 (212) 292 0037
Open every day; 8 a.m.-1 a.m.
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