Agora Meyhanesi 5.38

Istanbul film director Ezel Akay opens reopens the famous Agora meyhane in Balat

Having shot many of his cinema works in Istanbul’s irresistible Balat district, director Ezel Akay has gone somewhat native. He talks about how his love of the historic area caused him to breath a kiss of life into its most famous meyhane, the Agora.

After a great fire burnt the place down in the 1890s, the city planning went under a complete renovation – the results of which are still with us today. In the Byzantine period, this area was home to a variety of peoples from all walks of life – and this feature of Balat continued after the conquest. Today, it is still an area heavily populated by minorities but over the last century it has gotten quite rough. Still, it's a place where a woman can walk without getting harassed, where you’ll hear the sound of children playing well after 23.00 and where in the morning as you walk the streets, you are greeted by the fragrant smell of cakes and freshly baked bread. What’s more, everything is cheap – including the meyhanes. That’s why I think this neighbourhood was famous for the highest consumption of alcohol in Turkey – the meyhanes stretch out the cover the entire seafront. The old meyhane culture is making a comeback here without losing its old charm.

I used to come to Balat to shoot films all the time, and I’d think to myself “Where can I hang out around here? There wasn’t even a good butcher – and I wanted people to taste the food I liked to make while we were working here. Eventually I spoke to an old friend – Dr Deniz Sevinç, who told me I should go see a mutual friend, Ersin Kalkan – a journalist who knows the area well. The main building of old Agora is finally bought from the Dulidis family who had run this family business for three generations.

I’ve been making food since I was a kid. I worked in America for a year as a cook. After coming back to Istanbul, I worked in a friend’s restaurant for a while making stuff that no one knew how to make. I can slave over a meal for hours – I guess that’s how I deal with the stress of multiple projects. We get pleasure in pleasing others, I suppose.


I have a number of ideas in my head I want to try in Agora, to-do with everything from the ingredients to the choices on offer. I started as an amateur, but our manager is experienced in the business side of things – I mean, for him, it’s more than just mezes. We also have Mesut, who is our chef and an expert when it comes to seafood, having grown up in Bodrum. He himself is actually a Zaza [an ethnic group from mountainous Eastern Anatolia] from Elazığ – while our other cooks comprise of an Armenian, a Greek and a Turcoman. Needless to say, it is a multiethnic Ottoman meyhane.
I cook here every week, yes, but you might like to call me a “food designer”! Ihave designed the basic strategy, ingredients, names for the dishes and serving and cooking styles for Agora’s kitchen, to create a unique but “familiar”, surprising but pleasurable, a new approach to eating based on good-old-fashioned Ottoman Meze Table: The Fork Table!
Everything is cut to be eaten with one fork, so, you will be able to hold your “raki” glass with the other)



We have consulted the regulars, or the old proprietors in order to find out how we could restore the establishment to its former glory.

We spoke to Hristo and his wife Evgenia, as well as his brother Asteris – who is a cook by profession. They all live in Athens these days, but we managed to speak to all of them. The food was served on upturned barrels in the original meyhane so we turned them up and mounted them with table tops. They told us liver was very popular so we added arnavut ciğer and yaprak ciğer to the menu. But I think more than furnishings and foods, the important thing is the general etiquette of the place.

There’s no other culture that has so many codes ruling its drinking culture. Maybe it’s because, this being a Muslim country, the original owners felt a need to adapt to the context. There really is a system of etiquette to the meyhane culture – and those who go against the grain will not be met with approval. We gathered a lot of these considerations from our customers, who appreciate that the kitchen closes at midnight, followed by the whole place an hour later. After 22.00, we don’t let in people who look like they have had a few drinks. Regarding the noise level, it’s okay to have live music – but it must be acoustic. This place has so many memories – it’s 124 years old, after all. It’s been remembered fondly by poets, writers, actors, directors and politicians of all ilks who come here regularly to discuss politics. In the 60s, it even became famous with a popular song of the same name, not to mention the fact it has been the setting of over 220 Yeşilçam movies.

Kemal Sunal(an old Turkish comedy actor) had a film here, and there’s a line in it where he cries “What? Are we supposed to eat on barrels?”. There’s also a very lovely, yet tragic movie called ‘Agora Meyhanesi’. But if I’m being honest, I have to admit that most films of the classic Turkish cinema years weren’t very good.

Since Agora started serving, I’ve written three or four screenplays. I’ve actually been meaning to finalize one of them though, but haven’t got round to it. I’ve been shooting a lot of commercials, of which we shot some stuff in Agora. At least two of them are inspired by our meyhane. It’s kind of improvised meyhane movie, called Barba and Friends. That’s going to be filmed here. Also, there is a Greek production company going to work on the film adaption of a book called ‘Dangerous Dishes’, by a Greek writer. It will be on the big screen – the plot follows two friends who work in the kitchen of a restaurant and fall in love with the same woman. The woman is a foodie to the point that her love depends on who can provide her the best food, so the two end up pitted against each other in a culinary duel. There’s never been a ‘food movie’ in Turkey, so we’ll see how it ends up.

Agora Meyhanesi 1890 Mürselpaşa Caddesi 135, Ayvansaray-Fatih-Istanbul
(0212) 631 21 36
agora1890@gmail.com
ezop2011@gmail.com
www.agorameyhanesi.com.
Tue-Sat 11.00-01.00.
Sun 10.30-01.00