Didem Şenol: the chef behind Lokanta Maya in Karaköy
Didem Şenol is the chef behind Lokanta Maya, a small restaurant on Kemankeş Caddesi in Karaköy, Istanbul. She opened it in May 2010 after training and working in New York, and the restaurant’s own blog describes it simply as a place serving small dishes from the Aegean, with menus that change with the seasons. It is a modest idea, carried out with real care.
What made people take notice was the combination of price and polish. Reviewing it in its first year, the Sabah writer Deniz Erbil called it a “contemporary tradesman’s lokanta” (a lokanta is an everyday restaurant, the kind workers eat lunch in), with prices no different from a neighbourhood canteen but presentation and originality to rival far more expensive restaurants (Sabah). The same year, Time Out Istanbul named her Best Chef in its Eating & Drinking Awards. If you like Turkish food that is light, seasonal and built around good olive oil, fish and vegetables, her cooking is a good place to start.
Early life and career
From psychology to the French Culinary Institute
Şenol studied psychology at Koç University in Istanbul before going to the United States to train as a cook (Sabah). According to Lokanta Maya, she trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York in 2001 and went on to work in two well-known Manhattan kitchens, Le Cirque and Eleven Madison Park.
Back in Istanbul
On her return to Turkey she created a menu of ufak yemekler (small dishes) for Nu Teras in Istanbul, then ran the kitchens of a hotel in Kumlubük, on the Aegean coast (Sabah); the restaurant’s blog also listed her as consulting chef at the Dionysos Hotel in Kumlubük. Small plates have stayed at the heart of her cooking ever since.
Restaurants
Lokanta Maya, Karaköy, Istanbul
Lokanta Maya opened in May 2010 at Kemankeş Caddesi 35/A in Karaköy. In those early days, Sabah reported, Şenol cooked the food herself early each morning with a single assistant, then came out front to greet guests and serve them. The room was simple and modern, with wooden tables on iron legs, and in the evening the tables were dressed with white cloths and candles. Lunch and dinner had different menus, with dinner – a heavier, more elaborate menu – served only from Thursday to Saturday at first, and a brunch on the first Sunday of each month, for which she picked mushrooms in Belgrad Forest herself.
Writing for Istanbul Eats in 2011, the journalist Jennifer Hattam described rustic wooden tables and sleek hanging light bulbs, a place stylish without being too posh for its working-class neighbourhood, and warned that booking was essential even on weekdays. The restaurant’s website lists both lunch and dinner.
Cooking style and signature dishes
Lokanta Maya’s own description of its cooking is short and clear: simple dishes, made with fresh, seasonal ingredients and the right technique, in which the flavour of the ingredient comes first. “The first step in our kitchen,” it says, “is getting hold of the right ingredient.” That means named regional sources: bread from Bolu, pomegranate molasses from Antakya, blue cheese from Konya and olive oil from Marmaris.
The kitchen also sets itself rules. It does not serve turbot (kalkan), bluefin tuna, or lüfer (bluefish) under 24 cm, and it keeps out sugar not made from sugar beet, as well as frozen and ready-made products. Dishes reviewers have singled out over the years include:
- Caramelised sea bass (levrek) with orange – Istanbul Eats called it a house favourite, with a hint of sweet orange in the crisp skin.
- Mücver (courgette fritters), crisp outside and soft inside, according to Sabah, and praised by Istanbul Eats too.
- Chicken liver pâté with quince marmalade, on the menu in 2010 and still on the sample menu today.
- Raw bonito (palamut) marinated in salt and lemon juice, which Sabah picked out in 2010.
- Fried anchovies, which the food writer Katie Parla listed among her best bites of 2010.
- Şekerpare (a syrup-soaked semolina biscuit) with a lemony tang, and mastic ice cream sandwiched between wafers of kağıt helva, both mentioned by Istanbul Eats.
The menu changes daily with the season. A sample menu on the restaurant’s website includes a herby pulse salad with pomegranate, sea bass pilaki (braised in olive oil) with fennel, slow-cooked lamb with white bean purée, and mastic pudding with sour cherry sauce.
Awards and recognition
- Time Out Istanbul Eating & Drinking Awards 2010: Best Chef, chosen through online and survey voting, according to Lokanta Maya.
Books, TV and online
- Kızınız Defne’yi Oğlumuz İskorpite… (2010) – her cookbook, subtitled “Creative dishes: from Aegean markets to flavours”. The playful title pairs defne (bay laurel) with iskorpit (scorpionfish). It pairs stories from her travels, including the ingredients she brought back to her kitchen, with recipes for her own dishes; a second edition followed in June 2011 (Lokanta Maya), and Istanbul Eats noted it was available in Turkish and English.
- Radikal column – from October 2010 to July 2011 she wrote a Sunday food column for the newspaper Radikal, listed on the restaurant’s blog, on subjects from bonito season and a day in Antep to legumes, summer grains and going to the market.
Where to eat food like this in London
For small plates in the same spirit, browse our meze and fine dining listings and our Turkish seafood restaurants, or read our guide to Turkish seafood in London. To cook along at home, try our levrek buğulama (steamed sea bass), hamsi tava (fried anchovies) or şekerpare.
- Kirvem – Turkish meze & fine dining in London
- Gallipoli – Turkish meze & fine dining in Islington & Angel
- Beyzade Turkish Kitchen – Turkish meze & fine dining in Putney
- Ev Restaurant – Turkish meze & fine dining in Borough & Southwark
- Izgara Finchley – Turkish meze & fine dining in Finchley
- Mangal Meze – Turkish meze & fine dining in Romford
See all 95 Meze & Fine Dining places in London
Quick facts
- Based in: Istanbul
- Trained: French Culinary Institute, New York (2001)
- Worked at: Le Cirque and Eleven Madison Park, New York
- Restaurant: Lokanta Maya, Karaköy, Istanbul (opened May 2010)
- Book: Kızınız Defne’yi Oğlumuz İskorpite… (2010)
- Award: Best Chef, Time Out Istanbul Eating & Drinking Awards 2010
Further reading
- Lokanta – Lokanta Maya
- Lokanta Maya blog
- Çağdaş esnaf lokantası – Sabah (Turkish)
- Lokanta Maya: subtle surprises – Istanbul Eats
- My very best bites of 2010 – Katie Parla
Pictured: levrek buğulama. Photo: Benreis, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
