AI-made picture of the dish, not a house photo
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Our dish — the plate we'd order here firstMilk pudding made with shredded chicken breast
Where it comes fromIstanbul's own
Mehmed the Conqueror, the sultan who took Istanbul in 1453, had his muhallebi made with chicken. From the palace kitchen it went out to the city's street sellers and muhallebicis, the pudding shops.
Sources: İdil Açıkalın, Sabah (2025); Aylin Öney Tan, Hürriyet Daily News (2013); Ramazan Başan, Hürriyet (2020).
At Kanaat Lokantası
Thickened with finely shredded chicken and dusted with cinnamon. The order we'd cross the water for.
From Kanaat Lokantası's own menu and pages, as we read them in September 2026.
Also on our table
Turkish · esnaf lokantası · Üsküdar, Istanbul
Sultantepe Mah., Selmani Pak Cd. No:9, 34674 Üsküdar/İstanbul
The Kargılı family has kept this Üsküdar lokanta, the cookhouse, for generations, cooking hot dishes, milk puddings and olive-oil vegetables fresh each day. It's the Istanbul home table at its most careful.
We'd add
Beef braised in its own juices with tomato and onion
Türkiye's register gives it two south-eastern homes: Diyarbakır's üsküre kebabı, also called tas kebabı, registered in 2021, and Şanlıurfa's miftahi tas kebabı, registered in 2022.
Braised slowly, with pilav, buttered rice, beside it. The main before the pudding.
If there's room
Vine leaves rolled round rice, raisins and pine nuts, in olive oil
The Lenten dolma, made without meat, which the meyhane called the Rum's dolma.
Made fresh each day with the rest of Kanaat's olive-oil dishes, and served cold from its counter.
Also kept here
Atlantic bonito, fresh, named by size
Bonito were Byzantion's great catch, and they still pour through the Bosphorus from mid-September. The city names them by size as they grow: palamut in their first year, torik in their second.
Been here?
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