TURKISH DELIGHT

Kahvaltı might be the most important meal of the day, but how you eat it is just as important as where you go

- DILVIN YASA

For the uninitiated, Istanbul can seem like a lawless place – the kind of city where vibrant yellow taxis weave erratically between pedestrians, seagulls mug you for your simit on ferries, and Okey tiles tumble against tabletops in bars and cafés long after your hotel lights have dimmed.

The smoke-scented chaos is often part of the charm, but happily for those who need a little reprieve, the antidote arrives daily in the form of kahvaltı, a meal that calls the locals – as well as a few insatiable visitors – into heaving eateries to share food (and many, many openly expressed feelings), with family, friends and colleagues.

For the experience-hungry traveller, kahvaltı is the city’s holy grail. Not just for the food on the table but for the enticement to roll out of bed and into the street to experience the morning. Because Istanbul has a magic about it when it’s early. In a city of 16 million, the sacredness of it all can rise up when it is still. From the moment the sun rises when the call to prayer reverberates from Sultanahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque) to the way 2000 years of architecture and the waters of the Bosphorus are painted in a cinematic light in the morning, Istanbul is a lark. And the city is best observed from rooftops, boats and chic restaurants over plate upon plate upon plate of delicious delicacies.