Farewell Istanbul, Hello Alaçatı

2014 has been the year of two questions I heard over and over again. My food walk guests have been asking whether I am planning to open a restaurant of my own while my cooking class customers have been wondering if I have a cookbook in the workings. After many heated debates and painful hours of contemplation I finally have the answer: my cookbook has to wait.

Over the past three years we have been returning to the Aegean coast on various occasions. A doable 6-7 hour drive from Istanbul, this area of Turkey offers turquoise sea, atmospheric old towns still untouched by the over-development and all-inclusive tourism as well as some of the best food in the country. When my husband wants to explain how keen I am on the seafood and wild greens of the Aegean, he declares that if I had not met him, I would have married a man from Izmir. Özgür knows what he is talking about: as long as there is good food at stake I am not picky about my methods. After all I stalked his mom, an outstanding cook, before I even considered Özgür as a prospect.

As we wondered the cobble stone streets of Alaçatı last spring just before the crowds of the young and beautiful Istanbullites descended on this pretty resort town, Özgür uttered, “I could live here”. I still remember the exact corner where he said it. I stared it him for a moment as if to ask, “Are you even serious?” His words evolved into a specific plan this summer. And the plan turned into real life this fall when we moved our house, dogs and ourselves to a thirty five year old house with a garden in the heart of Alaçatı to open a restaurant.

If you have followed this blog for a while or we have ever spoken about restaurants in person, you may wonder what happened to my “never-ever-a-restaurant-again” attitude. Many know that I spent a year helping my mother-in-law at her restaurant kitchen, and after many months of frustration and deteriorated health I fled in despair. I have been telling everybody who has asked me about running a restaurant that it is physically challenging job with a never ending working day that anchors you to a particular space and values execution over creativity. A recent customer asked me, “If you say that running a restaurant is harder than any other work, why are you opening one?” Well, I did not say we are doing a restaurant because it’s fun and easy living. So if you really want to know..

First, through this blog, my cooking classes and Istanbul breakfast club I started feeling compelled to share my food philosophy far and beyond. I grew up when organic, seasonal and whole foods were not the buzzwords, but unspoken principles that kitchens of the women in my family functioned by. Cooking has been an important ritual that brought the whole family together, being it canning for winter or collective preparation of the Easter lunch. Not surprisingly I married a man who grew up with a cooking grandma. Our both grandfathers and uncles fished, mine in the Volga river, his in the Mediterranean Sea. We ate things from the land as they were coming according to the seasons. It was a way of life, not a headline or a magazine cover.

People who follow me on Instagram or come for my breakfasts often ask me whether I eat the healthy and varied meals I showcase, everyday. Yes, I do, and I don’t think this makes me a hero. I only want to make and eat honest food, like the one I grew up or like the one I got to know at my mother-in-law’s house. I want many more people to eat that food, to bring back the memories of the real that many of us have and to drive demand for honest food. I suppose our restaurant will be instrumental to help my on that mission.

Second, I feel that I have eaten and cooked everything I could in Istanbul; you can go only so far in a city. It is time to be closer to the farmers and food makers, possibly be part of food growing and producing. I can strongly relate to the Dan Barber’s ideas of the farm-to-table movement he shares in his book “The Third Plate”. Instead of cherry-picking and cooking with the best farm-grown produce you can get (to which you have a terrific access in Istanbul anyways), he talks about moving “upstream” and getting your nose in the ground, sometimes literally. Instead of simply wondering where your ingredients come from and how they are grown, Barber encourages cooks to partake in that process and understand how they can help. So I view moving to the Aegean with its rich farming tradition as my next step in that direction.

Finally, it is about us, Özgür and myself. We thought that it was time for us to create something on our own and implement many ideas we have been collecting and cherishing through our travels in Turkey and abroad. Whenever we are dining out or staying at a hotel, we are having endless discussions about details, service, food, cool ideas and possible improvements. We also enjoy hosting guests, being it a group of friends or perfect strangers. We thought that opening a restaurant, with Özgür being the front of the house and me running the kitchen, is the most natural thing we could do together.

It’s pretty incredible how it works with the big plans: you don’t need much to get started. I remember it well from the time I quit my strategy consulting career and set up my Delicious Istanbul food tour and cooking class business. You only need to make one commitment. Once we decided when we were going to leave Istanbul, the pace of changes picked up so fast that it had been pushing us along the way. We only needed to keep pedaling and decide whether to choose right or left at the next turn. And even if the road brings you to what seems as a dead end, you keep pedaling.

After the initial look at the commercial property rentals in Alaçatı we realized we were about 2-3 years late: the prices have soared as the upscale resort town grows more popular every season. We have seen a lot of folks with deep-deep pockets around, and I almost started doubting we could compete with them for a nice piece of restaurant-worthy property. But then Özgür found an announcement on a popular website with a short description and no photo. I still don’t understand how he even considered that announcement as I usually ignore any postings without photos.

From a brief phone conversation with the landlord we figured it was a one-story village house with a garden on a quiet lane by the main square. I recalled the Turkish village house revamped in style by the British painter that hosted us last summer. Özgür became reminiscent about his grandma house on the Mediterranean where he spent his childhood. We booked our flight to see the place.

I didn’t need to know anything after the host opened the gate that revealed the garden with trees loaded with bursting pomegranates, lemons and bitter oranges, yet to ripen. I wanted that place to become our restaurant.

Mekrure Hanım, the owner of the house with the garden, was friendly. But she had her rules. She had been wanting to rent the place as a restaurant for two years, but could not find the right tenant. “What do you think? I would not rent this place just to anybody,” she exclaimed right after the introductions and told us about a half dozen prospective tenants and even buyers that came to see her place. “Do you think I am ever going to sell my father’s house? Nah!”

I knew we had our feet in the door when Mekrure Hanım invited us to come back in a few hours so her husband and daughter (who joined via phone) could participate in the conversation. And the moment she offered us Turkish coffee I guessed we had a deal. But still no lease signed, just a word. I could not sleep the whole week to follow worrying she might change their mind and give that garden to somebody else.

One week later I flew back to Alaçatı to sign the three-year lease for the place. As everything had been discussed in person and over many phone conversations, I came alone, without Özgür. I did not expect that putting a few signatures would take 2.5 hours of the heated debate at the layer’s office. Our landlord insisted on the few conditions that increased the financial burden of the lease for us. I wanted the place badly, but how could I make the deal feasible if left with little cash in the first year when we need to invest heavily? This was probably the first serious discussion I had in Turkish, all on my own. It’s not like sharing an joke with a spice vendor. But let me tell you, nothing boosts your confidence in a foreign language like the negotiation of the three year financial commitment. As we signed the papers, the layer confessed she initially had serious doubts we were going to close the deal that day. Doubts? I don’t even know what it means.

So what’s next? We are making ourselves comfortable in our new home, running around to obtain required permissions and creating the space we will call our restaurant, due to open in March 2015.

What does it mean for my food tour and cooking classes business and Delicious Istanbul blog? As the pace of setting up a business is absolutely absorbing, I am not doing the food tours in Istanbul (unless you want to fly me for a private arrangement). By the beginning of 2015 I am planning to resume cooking classes at my lovely kitchen in Alaçatı that we are making ready for such activities. Here is your 234th reason to travel here.

Also, I will continue blogging as Delicious Istanbul to take you along my culinary discoveries in Alaçatı and on the Aegean coast, keep you posted on the progress with our restaurant to be and share the recipes from Turkey, Russia and other crossroads as I have been doing. I might consider changing the name of the blog later, but right now I will continue as it, after all my love affair with Turkey and Turkish food started with Istanbul.

I hope you stay in touch via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogloving and subscribe to my email list (sidebar to the right) to stay tuned for the official updates and occasional village gossip. See you in Alaçatı!