ASLI FILINTA

“In the summer I love to picnic on a red checkered tablecloth with my dogs Miso and Cano in Maçka Park with a vintage straw picnic basket, reading and drinking wine. As it’s on a hillside the view from there is wonderful, and it’s a rare green space in the city.

Some afternoons, I also love to take a small taka (or boat) up the Golden Horn to Hasköy, to old-fashioned Sadrazam Mahmut Lokantasi where meat, and especially sweetbreads, are the speciality because of the proximity to Sütlüce where the city’s slaughter houses used to be.

I also love to browse the antique shops in Kadıköy, Üsküdar and Çukurcuma. I have good friends at the ones in Çukurcuma, so I drink Turkish coffee with them and while away afternoons until I get hungry and cross the Bosphorus to eat old-school Turkish cuisine at Kanaat Lokantasi in Üsküdar.”