Anatoli

13 March 2019

ANATOLI

24 Napier Street, Cape Town

No matter how often you’ve eaten at Anatoli, you feel that visceral excitement each time the huge mezze tray, with the panoply of small plates brim-full of goodness, is put down on the table. It’s a mesmerising, enthralling sight. There are so many delectable choices that one forgets what the first ones were by the time the waiter reaches the end of his explanatory narrative. The best way to deal with the situation is to make a mental note of the dishes you want to take as soon as they’re mentioned, hold on to that thought for dear life and immediately remove your choices from the tray when the opportunity arises.

Tayfun Aras no longer owns Anatoli, and left at the end of November 2018, but the restaurant goes on and by tonight’s evidence is as popular and as worthy as ever.

I knew nothing about Turkish cuisine before I ate at Anatoli and have since, from the meals here and visits to Turkey, come to appreciate their take on Mediterranean cooking. Turkish cuisine is quite varied (it's not just döner kebab and baklava) and what Anatoli offers is one facet of it; in what I would call the comfort food range of the spectrum, with a variety of tempting mezze and hearty main courses.

The wife and I, who've eaten at Anatoli often during Tayfun's stewardship, came out here for an early supper tonight to combine date-night with an investigation into the changes to a favourite eatery.

The interior of the restaurant is still reassuringly familiar, with the luxurious wall hangings, beautiful plates, paintings, multi-coloured lamps and the exquisite old ceiling beams. There are few restaurants in town that can boast this level of exotic Oriental cosiness, as if some special part of Istanbul had been disassembled, transported over the ocean and lovingly reassembled in Cape Town.

The mezze tray is still the same huge thing we’ve come to know and adore but as soon as we saw the contents and heard the descriptions, we knew exciting change had come. Most of the old favourites are present and correct and now there are a good number of new dishes, even if they might not be strictly traditionally Turkish, that could become first choice favourites.

We selected 9 plates, some cold, some warm, and that was our meal, apart from dessert. We always warn ourselves not to go crazy on the mezze, to leave room for main courses, and each time we fail miserably to maintain self-control. See mezze, like mezze, grab mezze.  Oh Lord, our intentions are good but we just lurve that small plate food.

We had hummus, eggplant medallions with sour cream. chickpea and salsa, a spice red peppers and walnut puree, phyllo parcels with slow cooked, shredded lamb shank, yoghurt and hummus, prawns in deep fried phyllo, phyllo cigars filled with Feta, yoghurt and dill, potato croquettes, and a quiche with tomato and Feta cheese.

You know how it is: you make your selection, take the cold plates and start chowing down, with the delicious hot bread, served and diced at the table, almost immediately forgetting how many hot dishes were ordered, and then they start arriving one by one; taking you by surprise because there seems to be so many of them, as if the kitchen is just sending them out without restraint. It dawns on you, once again, that you've ordered more than was wise and that you might not meet the challenge. What is certain though, is that there won't be a main course in your immediate future.  

Comparisons are odious and all the dishes were scrumptious, but if I were asked to rate the items, top score would go to the lamb shank in phyllo, with the potato croquettes next and prawns last, possibly because I love deep fried stuff in pastry, but the unvarnished truth is that  these delights didn't mess about on depth of flavour and yumminess with plenty of succulent flesh on the phyllo parcel dishes and creamy, soft potato under the lightly crisp exterior of the croquettes.

As mentioned, these might not be traditionally Turkish, but they are excellent additions to the mezze selection.

I did venture to the front of house to take a gander at the main courses, again to establish whether there were any changes here, yet with zero ambition, or foolhardiness, to order any of it.  Anton, the soon to be ex-manager, who explained the dishes to me, suggested we return the following night for the mains. Well, one day we might just do that except it's so damn difficult to turn your back on the mezze.

Tonight's main course options were slow cooked lamb shank, slow cooked lamb, slow cooked deboned beef ribs, chicken (new), seafood rice (new), moussaka, some other vegetarian dish, cous cous, rice and bulgur wheat, plus kebabs. I stood salivating, face pressed against the glass of the display, crying from lust for the lamb, a lust that would not be slaked tonight.

 

There is always room for a sweet ending and the dessert tray also boasts new, innovative desserts which, I must say, are probably more user friendly in variety than the standard Turkish sweets. It's not much of a problem for me because I always grab the sutlaç, but the wife doesn’t care much for Turkish desserts.

Tonight, she took the chocolate cheesecake but the other options (that were not baklava) were an apricot mille-feuille, a yoghurt cake, a beetroot roundel, and those are only the ones I recall.  

The cheese cake was good with the odd disorientation caused by a cheese cake texture with a chocolate taste. Sutlaç is heaven in a ramekin, what can I say?

The service was as good as always, and we recognised, and were in turn recognised, by the staff and chatted to Anton who is saying goodbye to Anatoli after 8 years to pursue a life (you don't have much of one in the restaurant trade) and creative ventures. You are still favoured with Turkish delight when you leave.

When I arrived at 18h30 (well, that was me, the wife who drove in from the far North, reported a smidgen later) there was one other group of patrons. The steady stream started from 19h00 and by the time we left, the joint was humming. Great place, great food, great night out. Tayfun's Anatoli was always consistent in the quality it offered and the transition seems to have been smooth.

There has been renewal and innovation without sacrificing what made Anatoli great in the first place and yet the tradition is still there. If you haven’t been; or haven’t been in a while; GO!