We decide the evening’s menu at six in the morning, standing on the wet concrete of the Kumkapı market with a thermos of tea. Whatever came in on the boats sets the tone; the rest of the menu bends around it.
Six o’clock at Kumkapı
The first boats tie up around five. By six the best bonito is gone to the hotels, so we buy what the hotels don’t want: smaller fish, odd sizes, the mackerel nobody else looked at twice.
If you ask the fishmonger what’s good, he’ll tell you what’s expensive. Ask him what he’s eating tonight.
What makes the cut
Anything still stiff, with clear eyes and red gills.
Fish we can serve three ways: grilled, cured, and in the pilaki.
Nothing farmed, unless the menu says so.
We price the board at two in the afternoon, once we know the yield. That’s why the fish section is the only part of the menu printed daily.
Curing for the winter
Autumn bonito is fat enough to cure. We salt it for three days, then press it under olive oil; by January it becomes the lakerda that carries the cold-meze table through the slow months.
Lakerda, per 5 kg bonito
coarse sea salt 1.2 kg
cure 72 h, 4 °C
rinse, press 12 h
olive oil to coverCome before eight if you want to see the board before it’s chalked up — and ask for the fish the kitchen is eating tonight.
