From street eats to Michelin stars: How to eat your way around Istanbul

Fancy a high/low foodie adventure? Istanbul nails both rustic street eats and swanky high-end restaurants, says Nicola Brady

Artily presented fish at Alaf Kuruçeşme restaurant, Istanbul (Alaf Kuruçeşme)

Every so often, you eat something that makes you stop in your tracks, perhaps even involuntarily sighing the words “Oh my God”, with not a thought as to who can hear you. A morsel of food so good that you know it’ll be imprinted in your mind’s mouth forever. And that’s just what happens when I eat balık dürüm in Istanbul.

The queue should have tipped me off. Though it’s only mid-morning, a small crowd has already formed in front of Balik Dürüm Mehmet Usta, a tiny street stall on which a man is flipping fillet after fillet of mackerel as they sizzle on a flat grill. While the skin is blackening, the cook pulls at each piece with a pair of tweezers, methodically teasing out bones as though they were stray eyebrow hairs. Beside the fish, there are mounds of shredded greens, carrots and pomegranate seeds, handfuls of which are thrown onto the grill when the fish is cooked, then doused with spices. The whole lot is rolled into a thin flatbread, which is in turn smothered in more spices and liberally squirted with lemon juice.

The process is hypnotic to watch. The man behind the grill makes hundreds of balık dürüm every hour, and nothing else. The finished result is like manna – the thick chunks of mackerel meaty and juicy, the fattiness cut through with the crunchy greens and flecks of pomegranate. And each carefully wrapped street snack costs just £2.