Kafe Life

I always wondered who these people were I saw sitting in cafes all day long. Now I have become one of them.

We are generally a peaceful people, if perhaps a bit over caffeinated. We don’t ask for much: a reasonably comfortable chair, perhaps a small table, and a bathroom that doesn’t require a code to get into. Okay, we’ll grudgingly deal with the bathroom code, if it’s less than five digits. But then we’d better be getting some internet access, pal. There’s only so much uncompensated oppression we’re willing to take.

You will find Denizens of the Cafe all over the world, of course.  I have joined them here in Istanbul. We are writers, students, office-less workers, artists, dilettantes, ne’er-do-wells, poets, people watchers, book readers who have come out of the house for air, lost souls, social malcontents, and, I don't know, I guess people who just really really really can’t stop drinking coffee.

In Istanbul there are literally thousands of cafes (kafeler, in Turkish) and tea houses in which to hang out.  They range from those with fine china and linen tablecloths to those with paper cups and folding chairs.  The ones I frequent  (somewhere in between the two extremes) are all off the main streets of Beyoğlu.   With only one exception these are all places I just stumbled into while wandering around the back streets of my neighborhood.  I kept coming back if they offered an internet connection, and were reasonably tolerant of my mangled Turkish. 

Honestly I'd be hard pressed to give you directions to any of these places.  But if you were looking to track me down on any given afternoon, here's where you might find me.

Cafe Urban

I will confess up front that the reason I discovered Cafe Urban is because it is a cafe with a fully stocked bar, one that includes Jameson, Glenlivet, and my Turkish beer of choice, Efes Dark.  Cafe Urban also has a decent menu, where you can find everything from baked salmon to spaghetti bolognese.  

But I don't consider Cafe Urban either a bar, or a restaurant (although you could argue it is both). It is a cafe in more than name only, because it is open almost all the time, and no one cares if you sit there all day and night, as long you occasionally order something.   It can be coffee, tea, carrot cake or a double scotch on the rocks.

In this sense, Cafe Urban satisfies a large number of my necessities of life.  If they did my laundry and let me take a shower occasionally, I might never leave.


There is a slightly hip but thankfully unpretentious vibe to Cafe Urban.  It lies in a back alley-like street between Istiklal Ceddesi and the "world famous" Galatasaray Tarihi Hamami (to steal a line from Mel Brooks, it's World Famous in Turkey). The cafe itself has 4 different levels, and seems to have been built into the walls of an old bakery; the lowest level contains bricked-in ovens and vaulted stone arches from another incarnation. On the ancient stone wall hangs a large black and white photo of Times Square.

 To complete the cafe's cosmopolitan bona fides, behind another stone wall there is a single unisex restroom.  (No Starbucks code to punch in here.) Yes, you get your own locked and sealed stall, but if want to wash your hands, we're all in this together, sister.  You can go hide in the powder room some place else.

There is no doubt that ex pats from around the world have discovered this place.  On this particular afternoon I am sitting two tables down from an American guy (I heard him answer his cell phone) reading J.M. Coetzee, and a level up from a middle aged schoolteacher in a bright-red hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with the words Alman Lisesi (The German School), typing on his iPad.

But Cafe Urban still belongs to the Istanbulu, which is why I like it.  Turkish people come here any time of the day to meet and talk with their friends, or have a drink with their date after a movie.   It's one of those rare places that is as fancy or casual as you want it to be. It tries to be all things to all people, and largely succeeds. 

In other words, this the kind of place that should be in every neighborhood in the world, but isn't.  I'm happy to have it while I can.

Laterne Cafe

In my mind, the Laterne Cafe is the anti-Starbucks of the Cafe World.  I'm not sure I've seen anything like in America or anywhere else.

Yes, the Laterne is a cafe, in the sense that you can get coffee and tea, and a couple plates of food if you are hungry.   Everything here is dirt-cheap.  I have no idea how they make any money. A glass of tea cost 1.5 Turkish lira, or about 80 cents.  If you want to spring for a cappuccino (not a great cappuccino, but still), it'll set you back all of  3 lira ($1.60).   There is no menu.  The food offered - dishes of pasta salad, couscous, stuffed grape leaves, and other cold mezze - seem as if they have been prepared at the employees' homes for a company pot-luck picnic.  These saran-wrap covered dishes sit atop a small counter in the front.  If something looks good, you just point and they'll dish it out for you.

The tables are laminated white or covered with a green velour tablecloth.  The seating in the center of the room consists of two rows of wooden park-like benches, facing each other over little glass tables.  The main room (there is an upstairs, too) is usually noisy; the lighting has the florescent glow of a junior high school cafeteria. 

But the appeal of Laterne is neither the food, the cheap drinks, nor the atmosphere.   Laterne is almost always packed, almost exclusively by Turks under 25 or so.  (Apparently I'm allowed in under some kind of middle-aged foreigner novelty exception).  No, people apparently come here for another reason.  Oddly enough, they seem to actually want to talk to each other.

There is a compound verb in Turkish: sohbet etmek.  There's not really a great English translation, possibly because it's not something we do a lot of.  It essentially means to chat with, or to visit with, or spend some time with.  This is what they do at Laterne Cafe; they come here to sohbet etmek.

No one is texting or typing on their laptop (except for me, which immediately identifies me as The Freak From Another Other Country).  Instead, they chat with their friends, play tavula (backgammon), Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble (that's Turkish Scrabble, mind you, which I imagine must be something like Chinese arithmetic), and laugh and talk and just hang out.

I can't be positive, but I think the word is "socialize."  It's been so long since I've seen anything like this in America, I feel like I am trying to explain the bizarre customs of some newly discovered tribe in the Amazon.

Compare this scene to your last trip to an American Starbucks.  Look for the people who have been sitting there for hours with their ear buds in and their laptops on.   Try talking to them.  No, wait; try just making eye contact.  Odds are great they will either: a) try to ignore you, b) reach for the pepper spray, or c) contact management to have you forcefully removed from the premises.  If you want to "socialize," freak, you'd better grab a computer and get yourself to a chat room.

They like me at Laterne Cafe, even if I don't play backgammon.  When leaving I always get a smile, a handshake, and heart-felt "Görüşürüz," Turkish for "I'll see you," or literally "You will be seen." They know me too well.

 I think they figure that, sooner or later, I will cave and try the homemade potato salad.  Then there will be no turning back.

Cafe Mitanni

Like Cafe Laterne, Cafe Mitanni sits on a quiet back street not far from the insane crowds of Taksim Square and Istiklal Ceddese.   It's the kind of place you could never find if you were actually looking for it.  You would either have to accidentally stumble across it, or, like me, pass it a dozen times before realizing it was a semi-legitimate business.

The Cafe Mitanni menu, such as it is, is written on a chalkboard outside the entrance.  Written on a second chalkboard is a message that reads, in English, "Don't Think Twice; Just Get In!"  This leads me to believe that more than one person has stood outside the entrance, thinking twice or three times, before daring to venture inside.   

The front of the cafe is only about ten feet wide, with three small tables and folding chairs, an old radio, a magazine rack, several unwatered dying plants, and two armchairs that look like they were tossed in a dumpster after being unsuccessfully offered at a garage sale.  Sometimes the cafe is quiet; other times a particularly pensive form of jazz from the 1950s is playing, the kind you would applaud by snapping your fingers. 
Seldom is anyone sitting in the front room.  If you sit there long enough, absolutely no one will come to take your order.   You walk through a short hallway to reach the back room, where you can make your food or beverage request.  The back room is slightly larger, complete with more tables, a small couch, and an upright piano.

I will admit that the only reason I ever ventured into Cafe Mitanni was because the nearby Cafe Laterne was too crowded or noisy. I've never encountered this problem at Cafe Mitanni.

 On weekends and some evenings, instruments are set up in the corner, as if a band is getting ready to play a set.   Yet in my half dozen visits, I've yet to see any musicians actually playing anything.  I don't know; maybe it's me.  In my paranoid fantasies I imagine they are waiting for me to leave before starting, lest the music be contaminated in the front room by my tragic unhipness.

On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon, a small scruffy group of ex pats of undetermined origin in their late 20s/early 30s - complete with a golden retriever puppy wearing a bandanna - sit around the coffee table in the back room, drinking tea and eating plates of various food from a makeshift buffet, set up on a card table.   To order a cup of tea I locate the sole attendant, a shaggy haired man wearing a turquoise T-shirt and apricot-colored pants, washing dishes in a small room behind a curtain.  After about 10 minutes he brings me my tea in cup that also looks like is was thrown out after the same garage sale.  A tiny spoon is sitting almost entirely submerged in the tea, so that I burn my fingers trying to fish it out.

 My sole companion in the front room this day is a young woman wearing an overcoat and fingerless wool gloves, reading xeroxed pages of something and underlining significant passages with a tiny golf pencil.   Her backpack and tennis shoes tell me without asking that she is American.    When owner brings her a refill on her tea, I politely offer her the sugar bowl.

"No thanks," she replies in perfect California English.  "I don't do sugar." 

She doesn't do sugar.  For a moment I imagine that I have been transported back to San Francisco, and next she will tell me my meridians are out of alignment.  But no, we're still here in Istanbul, although perhaps in a bit of a time/cultural vortex.  While I don't want to hang out here every day, there is an odd comfort of home feeling that I can occasionally appreciate.

Şimdi Cafe

In contrast to Mitanni, Şimdi Cafe is the kind of place that probably belongs in Paris or Milan, rather than on a side street in the middle of Istanbul.   If beamed Star Trek-style from your living room to the middle of this cafe, I assure you your first "where am I?" guess would not be Turkey.

The waiters are all male, all wearing the same white dress shirt (yes, untucked, but still) and black pants uniform.   There is real cappuccino here, and a real wine list.   The uber-cool background music ranges from Sade to the Cure to Tom Waits.   You can order pizza or pasta, eggs or omelettes, fish soup or smoked salmon. But no Turkish lamb kabob or shepherd's salad here at Şimdi.  You will need to walk around the corner if you want that kind of action.   Even the ubiquitous glass cups of Turkish tea seen everywhere else in the city seemed to be served here reluctantly.  

Şimdi is located just a few blocks from the British, Dutch, Italian, and Swedish consulates, which may at least partially explain the international vibe.   Not many tourists have discovered Şimdi (thank God), but the ex pats of Istanbul seem to know all about it.   Let's face it; no matter how much you love Turkish tea and baklava, sometimes your body simply demands an omelet and a decent cup of coffee.

 And yes, there is liquor license.  The Efes Dark beer is served in a frosted glass, and comes with a bowl of potato chips.  All of which is great, but honestly, to steal another movie line (this one from Jerry McGuire), they had me at beer.

The hip international bon vivant vibe is not lost on the Turks, either.  They're all over Şimdi, too, for much the same reason the yabanciler (foreigners) are.   It's just a very cool place to be, no matter where you are from.
    
In front of the cafe is a communal table that seats eight, along with a couch and several green velvet chairs around a square coffee table, complete with a bowl of oranges.  (I've never been able to figure out if the oranges are meant to be food or only table decoration.  For this reason, I've never had the guts to eat one.) 

For me, Şimdi is another great place to hang out, albeit at a slightly higher cover charge than others in the rotation.  Again, as long as you are ordering something, no one is going to hurry you along.  If you sit there long enough, you can segue from your late morning tea to your afternoon coffee to your evening frosty-mugged beer without ever surrendering your seat on the couch.  Trust me; I've done it.

All this, and a bowl of chips.   Like the other Denizens of the Cafe, you know I'll be back.   As long as there's coffee and an accessible bathroom, we'll always be back.

In other words, I will be seen. 

Görüşürüz.