Holiday Flair, Turkish Style

Once the holiday season starts, restaurants in which you can dine well and festively, free of crowds or the necessity of advanced planning, are as rare as a perfect Christmas.

May I, therefore, introduce you to Beyti Kebab?

Since my children were in high school (they are now too old to eat anywhere but in Brooklyn), our family has been joining friends for dinner, somewhat irreverently, on Christmas Day at this casual and cheerful bastion of sumptuous Turkish food.

Traditional it is not, but given our mix of religions and orientations, neither is our crowd. Our only common bond: We like good food, a lively atmosphere and a celebration that is hassle-free. Beyti Kebab, which originally opened as a butcher shop in the early 1980s, fulfills those requirements.

The décor is not enhanced by the acoustic tile ceiling and ho-hum travel posters, but the room is brightly lit and the atmosphere is resonant of similar establishments throughout the Middle East, an odd confluence of crystal chandeliers and shelves displaying stacks of plastic containers (Beyti Kebab has a lively takeout business).

The food is similarly basic and authentic. Any review of the menu must start not with appetizers but with the restaurant’s pièce de résistance: any meat entree where the word “yogurtlu” appears in the name. The various “yogurtlu” dishes consist of a meat kebab set in a pool of satiny yogurt in which bits of pita bread are in the process of disintegrating. It is the apotheosis of a soggy sandwich — and it is irresistible. Try it and I predict that nostalgia for holiday baked ham or stuffed turkey will cease.