Plate With A View: The Blue House Istanbul
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Ten years ago the owners of Istanbul's legendary Pudding Shop bought an old townhouse opposite the Blue Mosque. The "Shoppe" had been a great stopping place on the hippie trail east, but the Colpan family were now looking for an upmarket restaurant. They found an ideal venue, a 60-year-old house overlooking the royal mosque and its bazaar. Four floors were turned into a hotel while the garden and the rooftop terrace have now been converted for dining.
The service is formal but friendly. The menu offers a variety of national dishes - borek, pacanga and Turkish cheese - as appetisers, while the mains are predominantly meat-based - Chicken Shish, Tulip Meat Ball, Ottoman and Sandal Kebaps and Hunkar Begendi (veal served with mashed aubergine). For vegetarians there is Vegetable Stuffed Eggplant and a variety of salads and cheeses.
The clientele is a good mix of locals and European tourists with a smattering of Americans who have come for the view.
THE VIEW
The Blue Mosque is widely acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful in the world. Built in the 17th century by the poet-architect, Sedefkar Mehmet Ada, it caused huge controversy with its six minarets, which were considered an affront to Mecca (where the Great Mosque also had six). Sultan Ahmed insisted it was all a mistake. Allegedly what he had asked for was a mosque with gold minarets but the architect was hard of hearing and the Turkish word "altin" (gold) does sound very like "alti" (six). Honour was satisfied when the Sultan paid for a placatory seventh minaret for the Great Mosque.
From the garden terrace you see the mosque rising up dramatically over its own bazaar (built to make the mosque self-financing and still functioning today) but from the roof-top Marmara Terrace diners can also see Hagia Sophia, once the largest building in the world and now the undisputed symbol of Istanbul, with its huge pink buttresses and four minarets, dating from the time when this too was a royal mosque.
If you look behind you, the Sea of Marmara is full of huge ships waiting to sail up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea. For sheer value for money you'd be hard-pushed to better the view.
THE BILL
40 Turkish Lira (£13.50) for three courses, excluding wine and coffee. Wines from 30 Turkish Lira (£10). Open daily 7am till 11pm.
Blue House, 14 Dalbasti Sk, Sultanahmet, Istanbul, Turkey (00 90 212 6389010 www.bluehouse.com.tr)
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