MSA's Restaurant Excellence In The Making

The name for MSA’s Restaurant is no coincidence. Instead of fashionable ambiguity describing the place's conceptual secrets, one comes across the “still in training” statement on several occasions. However, the place, a training field for culinary students who aspire to create and develop other people’s taste palates, is already much more than just a work in progress.

- Marzena Romanowska

Istanbul’s Culinary Arts Academy (Mutfak Sanatlar Akademisi, or MSA) has been one of the most important culinary institutions of the city for over a decade, shaping local tastes and training the next generation of gastronomy professionals at a level comparable to international standards. MSA’s previous restaurant did not keep up with the school’s expansion, eventually giving up its space to demonstration facilities used for classes. Even after the closing of the first space, however, the idea of running a restaurant as crucial to gaining a full understanding of gastronomy remained a subject of in-house conversations. The perfect opportunity to open the restaurant arrived when MSA took over available space at Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan. At the end of the summer, MSA established a new restaurant on the grounds of the previous tenants, Istanbul's legendary müzedechanga, incorporating elements of its existing decor.