Specialties of Minorities in Istanbul: An Introduction

Istanbul has always been a city that speaks in multiple languages, cultures, and flavours.

To walk its streets is to hear the hum of kitchens, to breathe in spice from distant lands, to taste a history shaped not by one but many hands. To find the origin of Istanbul is akin to finding the centre of the world. Cradling two continents and two seas, this city has hosted multicultural societies for as long as it has existed (at least as far back as the archeological record goes). Here, cultures are exchanged, identities reshaped, and histories remembered.

Empires rose and fell in Istanbul; the Byzantines, the Seljuks, the Ottomans. Before the Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Jews, and Levantines were the Romans, Greeks, Thracians, and Fikirtepe settlers; each leaving behind a legacy of profound adaptation to the city’s forgiving climate, carrying recipes like keepsakes, adapting them to Istanbul’s markets, and in turn, reshaping the city’s appetite to become the global legend it is today.

Greek Taverns Along the Bosphorus

Long before the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul in 1453, Greek voices and smells of grilled fish carried along the shores of the great city of stone. In their taverns, bluefish was salted into lakerda, olives and tart cheeses were laid on tables as meze. Over time, neighbours sat down too. What was once a Rum table became an Istanbul one, and today, the meyhane, with its small plates, rakı, and songs rising into the night, still echoes history.

Armenian Bakers and Butchers

The Armenians arrived with the skills acquired from centuries of harsh climates and preservation techniques developed during the incessant Roman crusades (see history of Cappadoccia). Their ovens gave the city heavenly breads and pastries, their butcheries refined the spiced meats that were once dried on horseback on the steppe. Pastırma began as a practical Turkic preservation —salt, sun, and wind— but in Istanbul it found Armenian hands that seasoned it with care and precision. Together, craft and memory turned necessity into delicacy!

Jewish Holiday Kitchens

The Jewish presence tells two intertwined stories: the Romaniotes who were here before empire’s turn, and the Sephardic Jews who crossed the sea after their exile from Spain in 1492. They brought stews rich with olive oil, stuffed pies, and Sabbath breads baked for holy celebrations. At the market, Muslim, Armenian, Orthodox, and Jewish neighbours broke bread from the same ovens. Food brought down cultural and religious boundaries as neighbours exchanged dishes, both on their own special occasions and their neighbours’.

Kurdish Flavours of the Southeast

The Kurds came in greater numbers in the 20th century, bringing with them the tastes of Anatolia’s southeast. Büryan lamb roasted in deep pits, skewered liver, breakfasts heavy with herbs and honey all found a home in Istanbul’s busy markets. Kadınlar Pazarı became their stage, where dishes of the mountains met the appetite of the metropolis, adding depth to the city’s culinary treasure.

Levantine Cafés and European Tastes

Merchants from Italy and France opened cafés in Galata and Pera, pouring wine in vaulted cellars, layering cakes with cream and chocolate. Their patisseries trained apprentices from every background, and in those kitchens a new cosmopolitan culture was born. Even today, in Beyoğlu, you can taste the faint sweetness of that legacy in every delicate pastry.

Turkish Threads: From Steppe to Court

Running through all of these is the Turkish thread itself. From the steppe came yogurt, dried meats, and practical wisdom. In the Ottoman court, these met the bountiful Mediterranean flora. More and more fruits and nuts were introduced into Turkish meals, phyllo was stretched thinner with starch, syrups discovered then lightened with lemon, spices balanced with fatty meats and plain pilav. This framework didn’t erase other practices. It wove them together, like warp and weft, into something more profound than any single origin.

A Shared Table

To ask who “invented” baklava or börek is misleading at best. For millenia, Istanbul’s cuisine has not been about invention, but conversation. A Greek fisherman sells his catch to an Armenian cook. A Sephardic baker teaches his apprentice, who later bakes for Muslim neighbours. Kurdish herbs slip into a French merchant’s stew.

Each community preserved what it carried, merged it to the city’s rhythms, and influenced others in turn. The result is not a patchwork of competing claims, but a fabric dense, colourful, and distinctly Istanbullu.

This article is the first step in a journey that will take us deeper into each community’s kitchens, their dishes, and the stories that live through them. At Fairies’ Cuisine, we believe food is memory shaped by many hands, an inheritance rather than a possession. In Istanbul, that inheritance is a table where everyone is cook and guest, all at once.

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