You Can’t Put a Price on Bonhomie and Good Cheer
You Can’t Put a Price on Bonhomie and Good Cheer
Rock Lobsters in Beyoğlu
The Rock Lobster had me at hello. Made of white tequila, vermouth, almond syrup, and pomegranate juice, and served in a lowball glass, it felt like a ripe fruit in my hand. The sprig of rosemary the barman torched and stuck in the drink wafted around the bar like a priest’s thurible in an underground church. Plus, it had the right kind of ice.
Discovering the place where they make this drink, a cave-like bar with no name in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, was a godsend. This wouldn’t be true if the odds for a finding a good medicinal were a bit better in this town.
Turkey’s relationship with liquor is a checkered one. The recent law against the advertising of alcohol hasn’t helped. In spite of this, the raki culture seems to be holding strong and good wine can be found. Not so for the cocktail situation, which is pretty bleak. I have had some truly terrible drinks here, even when I thought that nothing could go wrong, as with a martini.
Sometimes the erratic nature of the scene might mean a lucky break, if that means getting a lot more alcohol than is normally put into one drink. This happened to me and a friend one summer when we wandered into an Asian fusion restaurant in Ortaköy, a neighborhood on the Bosphorus. The restaurant’s bar is perched over the water, the bottles lined up with the sea behind them, creating a stunning view. We each ordered a mojito, only there were probably the equivalent of three to four jiggers of rum in each drink. The rest of the afternoon was a woozy blur: nice, but unexpected.
I’ve read about the artisanal cocktail scene in other cities and seen pictures that speak to how mere alcohol can surpass itself to become artistry. But it was not something I believed I could find here. Nevertheless, in the hopes of a cut-above drink one evening, I went to the Orient Bar in the Pera Palace Hotel.
The men in our company wore bow ties, and the setting was faultless. I had a friend visiting from France, and he was impressed with the plush interior, with the talented piano player, and with the old elevator, apparently one of the oldest in Europe. But the prices were exorbitant, the drinks teeny, and they were not so much artisanal as strange, swanky-sounding combinations with names like “Russian Riviera” and “Greta Garbo.”
It was then that one in our party leaned in a little closer and almost conspiratorially whispered in my ear that if I really liked cocktails, I should go to this place just a few streets yonder. It didn’t have a name, though people generally referred to it by the owner’s name. I took detailed directions and off we went.
Apart from a few bottled beers, cocktails is all they do at this bar in a dark cul-de-sac off Istiklal Street. The drinks change seasonally but include some signature constants and are written out on slabs of wood that reside over the bar. The owner and his two barmen in their vests and ties are all about the craft of mixing, and they take themselves very seriously. The drinks are not cheap, but the bonhomie, warmth, and good cheer they create are well worth every lira.