Restaurant Review: Pandeli Locandasi, Istanbul, Turkey
One of the best known Istanbul restaurants is located in the space above the main entrance of the Egyptian (Misir) Çarşisi (Bazaar), one of Istanbul’s highly respected retail venues that specializes in spices from around the world, Black Sea caviar, and local sweets and dried fruit. The venue also sells a variety of high-end consumer products from around Turkey, including silk-on-silk carpets and prayer rugs, ivory and chestnut wood antique backgammon boards, and meerschaum pipes.
The restaurant is the Pandeli Locandasi, a culinary institution of the city and well-known business lunch hotspot. Every guidebook regarding the city of Istanbul has a paragraph about this storied eatery.
Pandelis Çobanoğlu, a Greek from Eastern Anatolia, initially began selling piyaz – a salad of boiled white (cannellini) beans, fresh skinless tomato chunks, fresh chopped parsley, and sweet onion, sprinkled with very fresh extra virgin olive oil from a street cart in the same area. That’s he would eventually open his eponymous restaurants.
Later, he opened a köfte (hamburger or large meatball) shop in Çukurhan, serving to the locals the classic Ottoman dish of köfte and piyaz.
Çobanoğlu started making a living from selling his meatball and bean salad to Eminönü merchants, but I don’t think he could ever have imagined that the same bean salad and meatballs would be eventually enjoyed by royals (Queen Elizabeth II) in his restaurant at the upper floor of the Bazaar.
The “Father of Turkey,” Mustafa Kemal, a young officer at the time serving in the Turkish military, seemed to have an open account with Pandeli’s to pay later for his meals when he received his salary at the beginning of each month.
Years later, after establishing modern Turkey from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, Atatürk (the name means Father of Turkey) returned many times to eat at Pandeli as the president of the country.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the Pandeli restaurant was frequented by the president’s affluent Greek compatriots, as well as the city’s literati. It also became a meeting place for writers, poets, journalists, politicians, and Western travelers who came in on the Orient Express.
After half a century of operating assorted eateries, Pandelis Çobanoğlu and his family opened the current restaurant on the floor above the entrance of the Spice Bazaar, a location allocated to them by order of the state. This happened after the previous restaurant was looted and destroyed during the pogrom against the Istanbul Greek community of September 1955.
His son, Hristos Çobanoğlu, a graduate of medical school, chose to stay in Istanbul in 1957 and help his father, giving up his dream of becoming a doctor. He became primarily responsible for making Pandeli a must-go place when visiting Turkey. The restaurant became a spot where West meets the Near East, with locals and foreign visitors ordering from a menu reflecting an eclectic mix of new Western-influenced dishes and numerous older Ottoman favorites.
Even now, to eat at Pandeli is like taking a step back in time. Ottoman turquoise tiles adorn the walls and floor as they did hundreds of years ago. The views of the Golden Horn, the Bosporus, and the Galata Bridge from the windows, as well as the sights and smells of the Spice Bazaar below, make the atmosphere delightful.
I had to go eat there at least once during my last visit to Istanbul, since Pandelis was a friend of my uncle George Hajioannou (Hatzioannou in Greek). Our family used to go to Pandeli for numerous plates of meze and raki that Pandelis would personally bring to our table from the kitchen and his raki stash (for family and friends only). Nowadays, no hard alcohol is served at the restaurant.
Hardship has frequently been part of the restaurant’s life, and it closed down in 2016 because of economic difficulties.
In 2018, the third generation of the Çobanoğlu family and new investors once again opened the doors of the Istanbul icon, and Pandeli is looking as good as ever. Abdullah Sevim, its chef of more than 20 years, has been back at the helm of the kitchen since that time.
The fish and seafood selections at Pandeli are exceptional, starting with the lakerda appetizer and the sea bass en papillote, which are perennially delightful dishes.
Of all the them, however, Pandeli’s classic hünkar Beğendi (translation: The Sultan’s delight) is my favorite. It’s a slow-cooked lamb shoulder served on a bed of eggplant purée, and it remains unparalleled in the city.
Round your meal with the oven-baked quince, which comes slathered with thick syrup and clotted, double-condensed cream (kaymak), and you have an outstanding lunch. (Currently, lunch is the only meal at Pandeli.)
Fortunately, there are numerous exceptional restaurants in the city, and if you wish fish or seafood for dinner, you could try the many establishments along the Bosporus on or by the Galata Bridge or the fish and seafood restaurants in and near Bebek harbor.
Bon appetit… Afiyet olsun!
