• Jump to Emily Morrison's guide to Istanbul's food, stays, experiences.

ISTANBUL: A CITY where you can live in Asia and catch dinner there, and work in Europe and have dessert there — all without ever leaving the urban limits. It’s a city that feels simultaneously hip, fresh, and ancient — where time feels compressed. It’s the liger of cities — part lion, part tiger — and like a liger, it is bigger than either of its parents, the biggest feline around. Not just Asian or European, but its own special breed.

My journey begins in midair. From my first sip of Turkish coffee to the sumptuous grilled lamb dripping with cacik (cucumber yogurt), I understand why Turkish Airlines has been awarded Best Airline in Business Class for several years running. I am considering designing an award for the flight myself: “Best way for a tired mom to feel like Sophia Loren at 36,000 feet.”

Upon arrival at Istanbul International Airport, the energy hits me like an Ottoman marching band. Istanbul was historically the center of trade from the Black Sea to the Aegean, and has been a converging point of cultures since the Byzantine era. The emergence of this massive airport hub carries on this legacy, exchanging merchant ships for brilliantly designed runways and elevated design. I pass a trio of chic women in Technicolor hijabs — a blur of attars and silk; in front of me is a German family who all look like they’re keynote speakers at an equestrian summit, and behind me a pair of Bulgarian backpackers smell of vision quest and patchouli. I’m already at the crossroads of the world and I haven’t even left the airport terminal.

Istanbul is home to two Four Seasons hotels; one in the historic Sultanahmet district, the other on the European shores of the Bosphorus strait, overlooking the Asian side of the city. By the time I arrive at the Bosphorus property, I am humming with excitement; even so I nearly fall prey to the (in)famous mattress. Happily, my curiosity prevails over fatigue, which means I soon find myself floating in the spa pool fit for the Ottoman palace the hotel once was.

My bathing reverie nearly makes me miss dinner. At Mikla, a Turkish-Scandi restaurant located on the rooftop of The Marmara Pera hotel in the Beyoglu neighborhood, I sit next to my host, Emily Morrison. A former finance executive from New Orleans, she first traveled to Istanbul in 2019. Disillusioned with her finance job and having recently completed “The Artist’s Way” (a sort of spiritual handbook for unlocking one’s creative identity), she found herself restless for a shift. A spontaneous visit with her husband led to repeat visits as she fell in love with the culture, the people, and the craftsmanship she found in the Grand Bazaar. She developed relationships with Turkish artisans, with whom she eventually collaborated to create her own clothing and home goods brand called Elysian. Having spent approximately seven hours in the city, listening to her, I already grasp how someone might reorient their life around this place.

After dinner we walk to a nearby bar that turns out, delightfully, to be a gay club. The dynamism of the youth culture in the city crackles; the median age of Turkey’s population is 33.1 (compared to 43.9 across Europe). I soon realize two things: I’ve completely sweat through my Marni trench coat, and I am far older than I have ever been. I make my way back to my room and try out that enticing mattress.

The next morning I wander through the charming Balat neighborhood, where colorful houses and narrow cobblestone streets share space with hip cafes and artist studios. As I sit and have my 400th Turkish coffee and snack on lokum (aka Turkish delight), I wonder, if I lived here, which of the two dozen cats in my immediate vicinity would I call my own. I learn that the preponderance of cats in port towns come from the ships that would use them to protect their cargo from rats on board. Once docked, the cats would be released into the city and their descendants are the felines we associate with islands and port towns today. I always just thought they were there for the fish, but it turns out, even the cats are ancient.

My next day is devoted to the bazaars. As festive and enticing as the iconic pictures depict, the Spice Bazaar is filled with a heaping bounty of brightly hued teas, freshly made lokum in many flavors, and of course, mountains of spices. The Grand Bazaar, about a 20-minute walk from the Spice Bazaar, is a true showstopper. With over 4,000 shops along 61 streets, I could devote a week to exploring the coolest mall I’ve ever been to and still crave more time. Here, I meet up with Emily Morrison again and learn how she first connected with her textile and ceramics collaborators for Elysian. Turkey is a matriarchal culture in many ways. Morrison was not gaining traction in her relationships with artisans until she returned on a visit accompanied by her mother-in-law. The artisans were eventually swayed by the older maternal figure, whom they dubbed “PatMom”(her name is Pat). I took home a tea set painted with the phrase “Heaven lies beneath the feet of your mother” in Turkish, a gift for my children as a general reminder (and occasional threat).

That evening’s dinner is at Aheste, where I share modern Turkish mezes with several of the artisans whose work I saw at the Bazaar. Over vine leaves with cashew cream and lavender zucchini in a chic, rustic private dining room, I realize for them, the collaboration starts with friendship, not the other way around.

On my final day in Istanbul, I visit the traditional shoemaker’s studio that produces Elysian’s footwear. After selecting my own silk ikat fabric, I watch it be made right before my eyes into custom Turkish slides. The superior materials and handcrafted methods used in the layers of the shoe’s footbed make it such that Elysian gets orders from nurses to wear at work who might otherwise be wearing Crocs. I later wear these slides everywhere, from the beach to yoga to dinner with friends.

Back at the airport, gazing down from the glassed-in second level to the main atrium below and its trill of travelers, it lands on me that I am leaving — and I don’t want to. It’s not often that I find myself daydreaming of relocating after only a few days’ immersion. Istanbul contains the incredible duality of East and West, youthful and ancient, glamorous and clamorous. If heaven is truly under mother’s foot, my kids should be busy learning Turkish in time for our next family adventure.