Where to Eat Near Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet

The area around Sultanahmet Square is the busiest tourist district in Turkey. That density puts good restaurants and bad ones on the same street, and from the outside they look alike. There are a few concrete signs that separate them.

Someone pulling customers in at the door

This is the most reliable sign of all. If a person stands at the entrance inviting passers-by inside, that restaurant earns its custom from people walking past rather than people coming back. A kitchen that works well has neither the time nor the need for it.

Are prices printed on the menu?

A menu without prices, or the phrase “market price” — especially on fish — is a warning. So are photographed menus printed in twelve languages: a kitchen aiming at that many audiences cannot serve any of them well.

How many dishes?

A menu of a hundred items cannot be cooked fresh. The arithmetic is simple: every item has its own ingredients, and if they are not used the same day, they come from a freezer. Sixty to seventy is a reasonable ceiling. A menu that has been deliberately narrowed is a sign of confidence.

When does the kitchen open?

Places that open at nine in the morning and run the same menu without a break until midnight prepared their food the day before. A lunch service that starts at a set hour is actually a good sign.

Walking away from the square

Distance from the square itself sets the price. Five minutes on foot brings the same quality down noticeably. Sirkeci sits in a good band here: within walking distance of Hagia Sophia but outside square prices.

A local signal: who is inside?

If only tourists are inside at lunchtime, that is not damning on its own — the district is tourist territory. But if there is not a single local at one in the afternoon, it tells you something.

Where we stand

Olive Anatolian is at Ebusuud Caddesi No:12 in Sirkeci — a five-minute walk from Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet Square, and 50 metres from the Gülhane tram stop.

Measured against the points above, here is where we sit: our menu runs to sixty-five dishes, the kitchen opens at 12:00 and takes its last order at 22:30, and prices are printed on the menu. Nobody stands at our door.

We are on the terrace floor, so Hagia Sophia, the Bosphorus and Galata Tower are visible from the tables — and we do not charge extra for a table with a view, because the terrace opens to it on every side.

The menu is here, and bookings go through our Contact page.