AI-made picture of the dish, not a house photo
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Our dish — the plate we'd order here firstBoza
A fermented millet drink, eaten with a spoon under cinnamon and roasted chickpeas
Where it comes fromIstanbul's own
In the mid-1600s the traveller Evliya Çelebi counted 300 boza shops in Istanbul, many of them kept by Tatars. The sultans shut them along with the taverns more than once, in 1568 and again in 1670.
Sources: Koçu, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, "Boza, Bozacı"; Mehmet Yalçın, Milliyet (2017).
At Vefa Bozacısı
Made in the house from water and sugar, left to work until thick. A glass for the cold months, autumn to spring.
Also on our table
- Leblebi, roasted chickpeas, alongside the glass
Vefa Bozacısı
Turkish · boza shop · Vefa, Istanbul
Vefa Mah., Vefa Cad. No:66, 34134 Fatih/İstanbul
İbrahim Vefa began making boza, a millet brew, here in the 1870s, and the family has kept the shop ever since. It's the taste of an Ottoman winter, still made the old way.
The proof, in the house's own words
Why the boza
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