AYLİN ÖNEY TAN
Turkish tastes in London
After my brief visit to London last month, I kept thinking about the past of Turkish cuisine in London. My parents were in love with the city. For that reason, since primary school, we had our yearly London pilgrimage. They were also keen on discovering new tastes. Back then, London was not the most exciting place in the world in terms of food, even the concept of fast food was limited to Wimpy Burger joints, but then, one could enjoy really good food in ethnic restaurants, primarily catering for their own communities. During those years, foreign cuisines were practically absent in Türkiye, so our visit was always in search of those diverse World cuisines, such as Chinese or Indian. My father loved the kitchen of the Swiss Center in Leicester Square, so we would occasionally have our cheese twist there, enjoying all the Schnitzel and so on. But frankly speaking, we never went to Turkish restaurants unless we had to. At some point, my mother’s art historian colleagues would invite us to a Turkish restaurant, as a polite gesture, or we would end up inviting them. Nevertheless, I had the chance to observe, and see the change, particularly after my transformation from architecture to food writing in the early 2000s.
July 09 2023
