A foodie in incredible Istanbul

I'm sitting high above the city, chewing on a fresh green olive. And then it hits me. There's something truly unique about this restaurant, Mikla.

It isn't its rooftop location, 18-storeys above the teeming urban puzzle of street madness and minarets that is Istanbul. It's not the sultry mood music that drifts over smooth wooden decking, across immaculate tables and into the sparkling night. And neither is it the elegant crowd of urbane young Turks, proudly showing off their nation's wares to their foreign friends and business associates. It's the olive.

Only slightly larger than a pea, bright green and served on ice, the Halhali olive has a satisfying crunch and subtle tartness that's unlike any olive I have tasted before. It's grown in a tiny Christian-Arab village in the south of Turkey, around 10km from the Syrian border, and is one of many long-lost ingredients that are being rediscovered at Mikla.

Finnish-born restaurateur and chef Mehmet Gürs (above) is the man who's doing the detective work. With a Finnish-Swedish mother, a Turkish father and a Swedish upbringing, it's little surprise that Gürs's restaurant in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul had a distinctly Scandinavian feel when it first opened in 2005. But as he travelled through Turkey and sampled unique ingredients in remote villages, the menu at Mikla grew into a contemporary take on the traditional Anatolian larder.

"We use only local ingredients, and really ancient and hard-to-source ingredients as well," says Gürs. "We've got an anthropologist who's been working with us for two years now. He drives around the countryside to source amazing products. Then we get them into the workshop to see what we can do with them. We come up with a lot of different ideas. The olive we have is not for marinating in olive oil, it's served chilled. It's an almost extinct olive."

Almost, but not quite. Along with a variety of honey from a village near the Georgian border, a special halva, a unique sesame paste and some long-forgotten pears, the Halhali olive is one of many obscure ingredients enjoying a new lease of life at Mikla.

Dishes such as the 24-hour slow-cooked lamb shoulder with frika (green spelt) pilaf, prune pestil (dried fruit leather) and pomegranate molasses showcase the best of regional ingredients and modern European cooking techniques. But it's about more than just the taste experience.

"You're not only eating something that we think tastes great, there's also an idea behind it," says Gürs. "By eating this particular food you are actually supporting the farmer who is in that village. It's the ‘no farmer, no food, no future' kind of philosophy that has always been essential to me."

Looking out across the Golden Horn harbour from Mikla's rooftop terrace, you can see Kadicoy, a vibrant neighbourhood on the Asian side of the Sea of Marmara. Here is where you'll find Ciya Sofrasi, another Istanbul restaurant determined to show the world the richness of Turkish cuisine beyond the doner kebab.

Owner and chef Musa Dagdeviren is on a similar mission to Gürs, unearthing organic ingredients and recipes on the verge of extinction, but reviving them in the rather more down-to-earth surroundings of a lokanta-style café.

Tables spill onto the street, while inside the shelves gleam with pickle jars stuffed with ayva kurusu (dried quince), sari kiraz (yellow cherries) and kenger thistles. There's a salad bar with peppery rocket leaves, stuffed aubergines and a spicy red pepper paste called acili ezme. And for main courses there are stews and soups, lamb and mushrooms in yogurt sauce with saffron strands, Maltese plums encasing soft, pink kofte meatballs. Everything is seasonal, everything is delicious.

Another of Dagdeviren's restaurants, Ciya Kebap, is just across the street. It sells all manner of regional kebabs and lahmacun, flatbreads topped with ground meat and spices like a Turkish pizza. But then Kadicoy is bursting with great cafés, lokantas and market stalls. Kaleidoscopic arrays of fresh vegetables rise up from huddles of housewives. The cries of fishmongers, butchers and spice sellers pepper the air. I pass a cheese-maker in a white coat, meticulously arranging his produce into an eye-catching display.

At street level, Istanbul's food is every bit as absorbing as it is up on the 18th floor at Mikla. But while the tourist hordes traipse obediently to the bazaar district, better and more authentic treats are to be found in markets like Kadicoy.

For street-food, however, it's back to Beyoglu, and the back streets crouching beneath Mehmet Gürs' towering beacon of fine-dining. Here I meet Banu Ozden, who leads street-food walking tours of the area on behalf of the Istanbul Culinary Institute. No sooner have we started our trek than we come across one of Istanbul's most notorious - and perhaps its most dangerous - street delicacies. In fact, it's more than just notorious, it's strictly illegal. It's stuffed mussels, and it's the second most popular street food in Istanbul after simit Turkish bread.

The mussel shells are stuffed with half-cooked rice and spices and then steamed. When cooked, half of the shell is pulled off and used like a spoon to scoop the stuffed mussel out. "If you eat it at a place that you don't know, if it's not cleaned well, you might get food poisoning," says Ozden. "That's why it's illegal on the street." She assures me that because this particular outlet is attached to a store, it's perfectly legal and apparently safe. I shrug and eat. It's good.

We take in around ten more stalls selling everything from sour pickle juice and cig (raw-meat) kofte, to ciroz (sun-dried fish) and botargo (fish eggs encased in beeswax). We pass a butcher's shop, where a grisly display of sheep's heads gawp out from a glass counter. I get the feeling Ozden is trying to prepare me for something. It's called kokorec.

Kokorec is made from lamb's intestines, which are cleaned, wrapped around some sweetbreads with spices and animal fats, and then cooked slowly over hot coals. Then it's chopped into tiny pieces and fried until crisp on a flat grill with peppers, tomatoes and chilli flakes before being slapped into a sandwich and served with aryan, a salty yogurt drink. It tastes immeasurably better than it sounds.

As if to show me how much worse it could be, Ozden takes me past a stall selling boiled lamb's head sandwiches. But our tour concludes the way any good Turkish blowout should, with a cup of coffee thick and strong enough to stop a large mammal in its tracks. We find it in a tiny alleyway off Beyoglu's main street, Istikal Caddesi, where there's a serving hatch and a scattering of tables and chairs, but no indoor seating. This is where the best coffee in Istanbul is served.

"The café's name is Mandabatmaz, which means the buffalo that doesn't sink," says Ozden, pointing up to a sign hanging outside the coffee shop. I look up and, sure enough, the sign depicts a cup of coffee with a large, horned ruminant floating on top. "It's because the coffee here is so thick," says Ozden, smiling wryly.

I've gone from eating the world's rarest olive in the lap of luxury at Mikla, to drinking the world's thickest coffee in a back street in Beyoglu. The illusion could be that I've eaten my way through Istanbul's food scene from top to bottom. Yet in reality, I'm glad there's a whole world in-between still to expre.

Five foods not to miss:

1.Bergama tulum: raw sheep and goat milk cheese

If Turkey ever gets into the EU, this raw milk cheese will be a thing of the past at Mikla (Marmara Pera Hotel, Beyoglu, +90 212 293 5656, wwwmiklarestaurant.com). It's stupendously creamy and tasty, especially when accompanied with fig confit and walnut paste.

2. Balik ekmek

Don't leave Istanbul without trying a grilled mackerel sandwich with red onions and lettuce on a chunk of crusty white bread. Look out for the smoky hotplates on the boats bobbing at Eminonu.

3.Mahmudiyye with dane-i-sari

Dating back to 1539, this re-creation of an Imperial Ottoman stewed chicken dish is one of hundreds made by chef Batur Durmay of Asitane restaurant (www.asitanerestaurant.com).

4.Simit

The most popular street-food in Istanbul, this ringed bread is slightly sweet, covered in sesame seeds and makes for a cheap snack. Carts are all over the city - ask for the bread cooked in brick ovens.

5.Doner kebab

It would be rude not to. Doners are everywhere in Istanbul, but for a really great one, it has to be from our old friend Musa Dagdeviren's Ciya Kebap (Kadicoy, +90 216 349 1902). Go for either the traditional crusty bread doner, or the durum doner wrapped in flatbread. And don't forget the chilli sauce.

Where to stay:

Witt Istanbul Suites

There are boutique hotels, and then there's Witt Istanbul Suites. Rarely in a hotel does everything come together to offer the perfect city stay, but this place comes closer than most. From design features like the pebble-head showers and the laser-cut floral motif wardrobes, to the sheer comfort of huge beds with winged leather headboards, everything is seamless. But perhaps the real luxury of Witt lies in the kitchenette, which allows for hours of indulgent food preparation after a visit to Istanbul's markets.

• Defterdar Yokusu, Cihangir, Beyoglu, Istanbul, +90 212 293 1500, www.wittistanbul.com

Kaftan Hotel

Nestled within Sultanahmet district, this is an excellent budget option that's close to the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace. The rooms are comfortable, the staff are friendly and there's free Wi-Fi. But it's the excellent breakfast that'll set you up for a day's exploring.

• Cankurtaran Mh., AmiralTafdil Sokak 45, Sultanahmet, Istanbul, +90 212 458 7785, www.kaftanhotel.com

How to get there:

FlyDubai has direct flights to Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen aiport from Dubai, for around Dh1235.