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The bucolic city park in the downtown historic district has picnic tables and benches perfect for enjoying your food in the great outdoors. After breakfast, instead of following the well-trodden tourist trail to the historic district of Sultanahmet, we head north to Bebek, a leafy suburb where the streets are dotted with boutiques and small-batch coffee shops. I feel rather like I’m in the Turkish equivalent of Hampstead. Like London, Istanbul shares a similar sense of being a collection of villages, stitched together over the centuries, and getting away from the centre offers the chance to experience it more like a local than a visitor. The following day we set out on the ferry to Kadiköy, on the Asian side – one of the city’s foodiest neighbourhoods. Next to me, a man produces a bread roll from his pocket and tears off chunks, throwing them up to the gaggle of gulls flying alongside the boat.
16 Kebab Destinations in Los Angeles
The light crispy Haus Fries are prepared with a signature German-Turkish seasoning bringing a zesty flavor to the must-have side dish. Order a refreshing beverage and you have a meal that is ready to go. The proliferating sizzle of grilled doner kebabs and scent of baked borek are heady signs of the growing number of Turkish restaurants in Southern California. Saturday morning, 10am, and I’m sitting at a café table on a cobbled street in the Beşiktaş neighbourhood of Istanbul, sipping a glass of çay (Turkish tea) and waiting for breakfast. By the café entrance, a plump, grey-haired man in a crisp white apron is sharpening a knife, before slicing through what is generally acknowledged to be the largest doner kebab in Turkey.
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Beef lule and chicken lule (a blend of thigh and breast meat) resemble juicy accordions. Bigger ticket items include succulent lamb chops and big rectangular sturgeon chunks with fatty skin. Vernatoun is a restaurant and banquet hall that’s excelled at cooking Armenian comfort food in the back corner of a Glendale strip mall since 2021. Lump mesquite charcoal bags are piled up behind a kitchen window, giving customers a small taste of their process. Luscious lule (ground meat) skewers center on either beef chuck roll or chicken thigh, which get seasoned with onions and spices and beautifully express charcoal smoke. Pork baby back pork ribs sport nice sears that don’t actually lock in juices, as the myth states, but clearly still help boost eating enjoyment.
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Thanks to the proliferation of restaurants, butcher shops, and street stands that understand how to grill, skewered meat has never been better in LA., making it tough to narrow this list down to 16 options. As previously noted, other Armenian meat markets also grill notable kebabs, but they require advance notice. On our final night, we take a taxi through the city’s labyrinthine roads to Arkestra, Debensason’s restaurant, tucked away in the quiet Etiler neighbourhood in Beşiktaş. Stepping through the door feels like walking into the coolest kind of house party. Upstairs, cocktails are flowing in the Listening Room bar, while the main dining room feels like a buzzy, upmarket bistro. The food is modern and creative, a confident mix of classical French technique and vibrant Asian flavours.
The true German experience.
Complimentary sides include silky eggplant caviar crafted with smoky roasted eggplant and bell peppers. This Iranian market has expanded in size and scope since Mory Pourvasei opened the business in 1987. Stepson Salimit Soheil became the managing partner 10 years ago and greatly expanded prepared food offerings, including charcoal-grilled kebabs on weekends in the back parking lot.
Michelin just added 10 restaurants to its California guide, and nine are in L.A.
Revealed: Darts sensation Luke Littler's victory meal is £7.99 mixed meat wrap from German Doner Kebab - as ma - Daily Mail
Revealed: Darts sensation Luke Littler's victory meal is £7.99 mixed meat wrap from German Doner Kebab - as ma.
Posted: Wed, 03 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
In 2021, they shifted grilling operations to nearby Aria BBQ. This grab-and-go strip mall restaurant with a steer horn logo offers no seating, but they do grill a la carte kebabs over gas, all available for sale by the skewer. Beef lule, chicken lule, and boneless chicken thighs are satisfying, but flame-red hot wings, drummettes infused with spicy paste, are even more addictive.
Proshyan is a street in Yerevan with a historic reputation for barbecued meat. This nighttime stand in North Hollywood occupies a doublewide red pop-up tent on the sidewalk in front of El Super market and hangs a small Armenian flag by their spit. Proshyan serves some of LA’s best pork shawarma and grills kebabs over glowing mesquite charcoal embers. They mold beef and chicken lule (made with ground thigh) around stainless steel and also cook marinated pork shoulder chunks that are notably juicy for such lean meat. Other options include iki bir (marinated pork belly), iki bir skewered with skin-on potatoes, and chicken breast. Skewers come in lavash wraps or on plates with parsley, chopped white onions, sliced tomato, and enough lavash to form a pillow.
You can even customize your order with requests such as more garlic sauce, additional meat, or no tomatoes. Our readers will like to know that the Döner is 100% halal. Anna Ivanyan debuted this Armenian market in 2017, naming her business for an ancient city that Armenian king Tigranes the Great established which is now part of Turkey. Everything from the market’s large butcher case is available to grill by the pound over charcoal across the parking lot in Tigranakert’s production kitchen. Start with luscious beef lule, marinated iki bir (pork belly), and beautifully charred marinated sweetbreads, which are a fairly uncommon find.
He marinates skewers in a proprietary marinade that includes olive oil, fresh and powdered garlic, onions, bell peppers, and saffron. These flavors and the charcoal smoke infuse wonderful flavor in koobideh (ground beef or chicken), salmon, chicken thighs, and Cornish game hen. Offal lovers will appreciate more intense lamb hearts and livers.
Sam Dumanyan is from a small town called Jrvezh located east of Yerevan in Armenia. He had a restaurant there and after he moved to Los Angeles, opened his eponymous restaurant in Van Nuys in 2021. Sam’s Kebab touts waterfall and blue-sky photo murals and specializes in skewers that he plucks from an enticing display case by the register and grills over charcoal either out back or in front. Emin Davoudi-Chigani runs Foothill Market & Deli in a Sunland strip mall and spun off the butcher shop as Meat Guys in early 2021. A printed menu lists proteins they can cook in an open-mouthed, stainless steel gas grill, but it’s just as easy to pull from display cases. The left case touts raw cuts like whole chicken, beef ribeye, and lamb leg.
The kebab weighs 100kg, a meaty monster slowly cooking from the outside in. Our guide, Sinan, tells us that Black Sea (Karadeniz) doners from this area are always the best – all of it will be gone by mid-afternoon. It may be steeped in history, but the best way to understand this multi-layered melting pot of east and west, Ottoman and Byzantine, is undoubtedly through its food. I’m lucky enough to be spending a couple of days with Cenk Debensason, recently awarded a Michelin star for his restaurant, Arkestra.
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