Inspired by Ernest Hemingway. Istanbul, April 2025.
A dispatch from the Hopium Health culinary travels.
The Brasserie was on the corner across from Louis Vuitton in Maçka. It had a white awning and wide windows that reflected the early evening light. The tables outside filled quickly. It was warm for spring. The air smelled of chestnuts and bread and traffic.
Inside, the place was full. A mural ran along one wall, all watercolors and brass instruments. There were posters—old ones—of Elvis, of Louis Armstrong and Motown singers. A large painting hung near the bar that looked like a photograph of ghosts: Amy Winehouse laughing beside Ray Charles, the Beatles mid-chord, and Sammy Davis Jr. in full stride. They had all gathered in grayscale, as though remembering something they had once sung together.
Faruk Süren sat at the corner table. His back straight, his jacket pressed, his shoes polished. He looked fit. He always did. A man who still believed in routine, in quality, in Galatasaray. He had been president during the club’s golden years, had led them to a UEFA Cup win, and his name still meant something in football and in Istanbul.
“You’re early,” he said, shaking hands.
“Habit.”
“Good habit.”
We ordered. He took the salmon with pureed spinach. Garlicky. Clean. I chose the grilled sea bass. The waiter nodded. “With the smoked aubergine?”
“Yes. And the salad.”
“The seasonal one?”
“That’s the one.”
The salad came shaved and light: avocado, artichoke, fennel, mushrooms, apple, almond, and Pecorino. The fish came clean and white with purslane leaves fanned out over it, green and wet and full of something you could not find in a packet.
Nilüfer, the beloved Turkish pop icon whose voice had once filled every home from the Bosphorus to Berlin, walked in like a lyric. Nilüfer arrived half an hour in. She walked lightly, in dark sunglasses, smiling at the host. When he saw her, he disappeared for a moment and came back with music. The old kind. Her kind. “Dünya Dönüyor” played low and slow over the speakers, followed by “Taa Uzak Yollardan.”
She sat at the next table. We greeted again.
“Have we met?” she asked.
“Twice,” I said. “But I reintroduce myself just in case.”
“Good policy.”
She ordered lentil soup and the same salad. Her voice when she spoke was soft, but it held something. A kind of certainty. Like Carole King with Istanbul vowels.
Faruk Süren spoke little while eating. He chewed slowly, nodded occasionally. “Good fish,” he said once.
“The purslane is good for the brain,” I said.
He smiled. “Mine is already full.”
“Of what?”
“Galatasaray.”
We laughed. The salad reminded me of Cipriani’s—the layering, the elegance. But this one had mushrooms and fennel and Pecorino instead of just Parmesan. The avocado was ripe, the apple sliced thin.
There’s something quietly persuasive about the Mediterranean plate — the olive oil, the fish, the leafy herbs, the raw crunch of shaved vegetables and soft yield of ripe avocado. It isn’t just a diet. It’s a philosophy dressed in lemon and lived at the table. Anti-inflammatory by instinct, heart-healthy by tradition, and rich with the kind of fats and fibers that whisper to your cells, not shout. No charts. No macros. Just food the way it was meant to be eaten: shared, simple, and sustaining.
A waiter brought lemon water without asking. Nülüfer hummed to her own voice playing from the ceiling. Outside, the wind picked up. The awnings fluttered.
“Do you still do concerts?” I asked.
She nodded. “One in May. Ankara.”
“I’ll try to come.”
“Try harder than that.”
The waiter brought tea in tulip glasses. Faruk Süren checked his phone, then stood.
“Walking?” I asked.
“Always.”
We paid. The mural caught the last of the light. The singers in black and white did not blink. They watched us go.
Hopium Health Note: This story was inspired by a real dinner at Brasserie in Maçka, Istanbul, and honors the quiet elegance of health, aging gracefully, music that still stirs the room, and meals that mean something.
Sometimes the best kind of health is a life lived deliberately—with good fish, purslane, and the kind of salad that makes you remember what you didn’t even know you missed.
