ARCHITECTURAL & HISTORIC PRESERVATION

An old, wooden Sultanahmet house that was abandoned to decay on Keresteci Hakkı Street, was restored in 1999 reminiscent of the days western culture came face to face with the Ottoman way of life. The building was fully renovated to become a chic, working restaurant with a 70-person capacity. The "Alafranga" restaurant put forward a fusion of cosmopolitan Ottoman cuisine from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and popular elements from Western cuisines. With both its food and its decor, "Alafranga" has succeeded in projecting the unique cultural synthesis of characteristic of this period. Later on, the "Alafranga" building continued serving mainly French cuisine. From the mid-2,000s until the present, it has housed the "Giritli Restaurant".