About
How it all began
Thanks to its rich geography and cultural heritage, Türkiye has created a very colourful, diverse cuisine.
There are literally hundreds of options for great dining experiences in Istanbul. In every spare moment, we would select one of these options to dine at, either on the pursuit of new experiences or visiting a known place, and hence, confident it will render us happy again.
In February 2023, we felt the urge to ourselves provide Istanbul and its visitors from all over the world with one of these options. Therefore, we opened ARAF ISTANBUL.
What we are becoming
ARAF ISTANBUL is a chef restaurant that does not strictly adhere to any discipline - a type of cuisine - but focuses solely on providing memorable culinary pleasures that surprise our guests from all over the world. Our menu is updated seasonally and periodically.
There's always a selection of some offal dishes and "best in town" dishes based on the feedback and comments we receive from our guests. Since we don't like things going to waste and because we have a penchant to make the unpopular be liked, most dishes on our menu star offal. Finding good products – which are the basis of any great dish – takes up a lot of our time.
We work with different suppliers from all over Türkiye. Sustainability and social responsibility, respect for our providers, their craft, and produce are what we consider non-negotiable essentials. Our chef's table concept provides our guests with an up close and personal experience of the open fire kitchen. Our guests can follow all the details of the preparation of their orders, see how each dish is being prepared while a dialogue naturally unfolds before they savour it.
Pınar and kenan
Two chefs who graduated from Yeditepe University's Gastronomy and Culinary Arts department, both in love with each other and their work. The special ingredient of ARAF ISTANBUL is that two chefs who graduated from the same department got married, spent a lot of time in the same kitchens, and one of them is in a different part of the world three days a week for R&D purposes. Thus, new products and dishes are continuously discovered and find their way on the menu.
Kenan
1987-Ankara After his first professional kitchen experience in the Clup Ali Bey holiday village, he gained experience in different concepts such as Limak Hotel, Yosun Fish House, Palet Patisserie, and Gaga Manjero in Ankara. He worked in hotels such as Bodrum Alkoçlar, Çeşme Sheraton, and İzmir Onyra Claros. In 2014, 11 years after graduating from high school, Kenan entered Yeditepe University in order to understand the scientific and the business aspects of gastronomy. He did internships at Nişantaşı Nopa and 3 Michelin-starred restaurant Arzak in San Sebastian, Spain. In 2019, he graduated and worked at La petite Maison in Miami for a year before returning to Türkiye. In 2021, he provided management support to a newly established chicken burger brand and then went on to follow through with his dream to open his own chef restaurant together with his wife.
Pınar
Born in 1996, she is the youngest daughter of a pharmacist family. While she was expected to study medicine due to all those first in class accolades throughout her high school years, she turned her interests to the field of gastronomy and entered the Yeditepe Gastronomy and Culinary Arts department in 2015. As a scholarship student, she minored in Food Engineering. She completed one of her internships at Arzak restaurant in San Sebastian, Spain and another internship at Frankie in Istanbul and then gained experience as a sous chef for Turkish cuisine and appetizers at Kiva restaurant, part of the Dream group. After her graduation, she continued on to get a master's degree in sustainability with a scholarship in Food Engineering. After a year as sous chef in Dokuz Ondokuz' opening team, she started to work as a Do&Co flying chef in order to get to know new products and foreign (culinary) cultures. Pinar brings all those discoveries to ARAF where she spends the other half of her weeks.
