Toi: At Chef’s Table With Ismet Saz

Michelin star studded restaurants and their distinctly formal dining ambiance, perfectly wrinkle-free starched table cloths, wine lists filled with a wide variety of selections from the regions that you would not even hear about otherwise, lists of showy ingredients reeled off by the waiters, and a lot more details that would stress out many people a bit and even cause them to hold themselves back from this experience…

In addition, if someone who is not deeply interested in gastronomy takes this experience further to the kitchen and eats at the same table with the chef, she or he might end up wrestling with such questions as “How should I comment on this?” or “How should I start eating that?” right before the eyes of the artist of the dishes.

“Chef’s Table” is a concept that has been widely adopted around the world and is unfortunately yet to be popularized in Turkey. The concept basically allows you to leave the regular tables at the restaurant so as to watch the preparation of the food and eat in the kitchen while having a chat with the chef. If you are interested in gastronomy and knowledgeable about it, Chef’s Table offers you a marvelous platform to enjoy. Besides, it is also important that the concept insures hygiene since you witness every bit of preparation. From the chefs’ point of view, it allows them to know their customers better, receive feedback at the same time, and exchange ideas with them.  Of course, showing off their skills with kitchen before the curious looks of the audience comes as a perk for the chefs!

Ismet Saz offers us a fine example of Chef’s Table concept at TOI Istanbul. We know him from Alaçatı Fogo where he made his first public appearance with Carlo Bernardini. During the rest of his career, he continued to build upon his initial success working with several renowned chefs such as Gordon Ramsay.

Named after the abbreviation of “Trust of Ismet,” TOI opened its doors originally in a building in Akaretler. However, I hadn’t had the time to visit the restaurant because of my busy agenda until it moved to its new location in Kuruçeşme where Ismet Saz took over Arşipel Seafood Restaurant to change it into TOI. The building has become a Voltron of tastes, so to speak, thanks to TOI and Inari Sushi which is located on the first floor, a place where Barlas Günebak plays his creative games with Japanese cuisine (Click for my review on Inari Sushi)

Powerful is the term you might use to describe the team of TOI, as Ismet Saz appears to have formed a “Champions League” by transferring big names from such restaurants as Alancha, Mikla and Gile. As such, I was particularly happy to see the young chef Yiğit Alıcı at TOI, whom I know from Alancha where he worked as a Sous Chef. Along with the kitchen team, the service team is also much appreciated as they are knowledgeable about their job and won’t give you answers like “I should consult someone to get the answer for you,” and they all pay great attention to cleanliness.

The restaurant serves only dinner. The menu which is mostly based on French cooking techniques changes every month. When we think about the professional background of the chef, we are talking about a great amount of experience here. With that, trying to reflect all this experience on the menu might sometimes end up in a jumble. So, although every dish is successful in itself at TOI, I should say that what I saw was a bit confused repertoire.

The first flavor to touch our palates was New England clam chowder, which was the first dish that I and my wife tried in Boston 30 years ago. The taste of the sand mussels dancing in the French seasoning sauce “roux” took us 30 years back to those times.

Following clam chowder was octopus salad with chimichurri sauce, a taste that is perfectly suitable to Mediterranean culture. Next, accompanied by Tulum cheese, dry prune and apricot, duck prosciutto which has been marinated for 28 days became one of my favorite dishes of the night.

The signature dish of the restaurant is beef Wellington, whose recipe is borrowed from England. The original fillet mignon which was wrapped by mushroom puree, crepe and mille-feuille met with pommes puree made with butter from Trabzon as well as spinach puree sautéed with some shallot. The most important detail of Wellington dish is that the beef remains soft soaking up the broth which is made with beef shin and aromatized with truffle while the mille-feuille wrap stays crispy. If the meat juice comes out while cooking and an extra sauce is added to the dish, the mille-feuille loses its crispy texture and hence the dish its essential characteristics. The Wellington dishes that were being served to the other tables while we were having a chat with the chef whetted our appetites; yet probably because we were the last ones to get served the Wellington, the mille-feuille had already started to lose its crispy form, which took down the whole dining experience a notch.

Much like the way I prefer the bass to be cooked in my house, only its side with skin was cooked and transformed into an excellent taste thanks to the accompaniments of quinoa and fennel. Following this properly-cooked juicy sea food was amuse-bouche jumbo prawn, which I found, however, was a bit dry probably because it was over-cooked.

Cooked with crème de cassis liquor and Madagascar black pepper, aerated foie gras with plum pate tasted above-average.

 Despite its basic and unelaborated look, risotto with beetroot, which was prepared with the special Italian rice “carnaroli, deserved to be called “the star of the night.” With the addition of grated Ezine cheese and lemon rind, the dish was a culinary show where the sour and the sweet dance on the palate.

While lamb steak, the last arrival, got full marks from everyone at the table, the lamb leg tandoori that accompanied the dish would have made me much happier if it had been a bit juicier.

We finished our dinner with a sweet ending thanks to all the desserts on the menu we tried which included NY cheesecake with forest fruit; pineapple carpaccio accompanied by ginger and mango sorbet; a light tarte tatin matched with vanilla ice-cream; chocolate bonet with mastic-flavored ice-cream, and crème brûlée which became even more enjoyable with the addition of sea salt and caramel ice-cream.

Our adventure at the chef’s table of Ismet Saz, which may welcome maximum 6 guests at once, took about 5 hours. Toward the end of the night, my friend who accompanied us throughout the night albeit being less interested in gastronomy confessed that he enjoyed the conversation between me and the chef like a movie, which made the night even merrier! I hope to see even more such chef-customer gatherings in Turkey, which not only brings the consumer and the producer face-to-face but also provide them a platform where the problems are addressed immediately and the new ideas are conceived. I know that there are many more chefs in Turkey who can duly bring life into this culinary culture; I hope someday I can meet them too for such a tasteful conversation…

Bon appetite and enjoy the taste of life…

TOİ

www.toiistanbul.com.tr

Kuruçeşme, Kuruçeşme Cd. No:11, 34345

Beşiktaş/İstanbul

+90 212 258 00 29