Could this unsung corner of Turkey be the next great food and wine destination?
A pomegranate tree in the orchard at OD Urla. Could this unsung corner of Turkey be the next great food and wine destination?
A pomegranate tree in the orchard at OD Urla. By Anya von Bremzen /
Photographs by Rena Effendi /
September 18, 2024
The patlıcan at Vino Locale is unlike any eggplant I’ve ever tasted: rich, dense, full of meaty umami courtesy of an overnight repose in the dying embers of a wood-burning oven. Served in a sauce of isli peynir (smoked local cave cheese), it arrives halfway through our remarkable lunch in the Turkish Aegean district of Urla.
My partner, Barry, and I sit at a garden table beneath an olive tree thick with fruit, enjoying dish after memorable dish. Before the eggplant came a dainty tartlet of muhammara (a fragrant chili and walnut spread) highlighted with watermelon and spearmint. Then a diaphanous dish of calves’ brains — “an essential street food of Izmir and ultra-sustainable,” says Vino Locale’s vivacious young co-owner Seray Kumbasar — in a green, lemony shock of favas, herbs, and wild purslane.
Chet Baker croons softly over citrus and pomegranate boughs in the early October afternoon. We sip Bornova Misketi, a floral-nosed local white from a nearby winery whose owner names her wines after Shakespeare sonnets (ours is No. 5), and ask ourselves: Where have we landed? And how is it that we only heard of Urla recently, after living in Istanbul part-time for more than a decade?
“Well, they do call us Turkey’s Tuscany,” says Kumbasar. Later in our three-day eating adventure, another chef will dub Urla, rightly, “the Aegean San Sebastian” for its improbable concentration of Amazing Eating Experiences in an area a quarter the size of Rhode Island. Soon after our visit, Michelin would shower the region with stars.
Before accruing so many nicknames, Urla was nothing if not serene — wind-freshened green hills, artichoke farms, vineyards, hidden swimming coves, and silvery expanses of olive trees, feeding olive oil production here since the sixth century B.C. There was plenty to entice creatives like Kumbasar and her husband to the region. She was a marketing expert in Istanbul, he a chef at the city’s fancy hotels. Looking to open a place of their own, the couple arrived in 2017 after living and working in Asia. They were drawn, Kumbasar says, by the luminous favas and okra and artichokes, by the incredible sea bass and squid — “the best of the land and the sea, all just a few miles away.” Wanting a place in the vernacular local Greek style (the area was mostly populated by Greeks before Turkey became a republic in 1923), Kumbasar designed the limestone restaurant structure herself. “When we first opened,” she says over housemade sour cherry liqueur, “nobody expected fine dining. Locals would come asking for a beer.”
Around that time, Urla was findings its way onto the tourist map by a group of local family-owned boutique wineries who created the Urla Vineyard Route, with tasting rooms and rustic guest lodgings luring Turkish visitors headed to the glitzy beach hubs of Çeşme and Alaçatı nearby. Just a couple miles from Vino Locale, an extravagant real estate and hotel venture called Famm Urla, by Izmir star architect and Urla fan Funda Arkas, is under construction. It promises to be among the most exclusive in Turkey. I’m glad I’ve come when I have.
Teruar’s lamb and tokat onion stuffed with pomegranate seeds.A half-hour drive from Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, the district of Urla spans the slender neck of a peninsula between the Gulf of Izmir and the turquoise Northern Aegean. Up near the gulf, Urla city (population around 50,000) was the site of the ancient Greek Ionian city of Klazomenai, a major olive oil center known in the Ottoman era by the Greek name of Vourla.
The following day, we amble through the cobblestoned lanes of the historic bazaar quarter in Urla’s Old Town — past jewelers and herbalists and baklava bakers, past overfed cats snoozing atop piles of striped melons. Come noon we survey the epic panorama of grandmotherly regional dishes at Beğendik Abi, a stunning example of an esnaf lokantası (or tradesmen’s canteen) offering lunches to shopkeepers and workers, with mezze and hot dishes displayed on the counter. Here the counter seems a mile long, enticing with dolmas rolled thin as cigarettes, artichoke hearts stuffed with sweetly spiced rice, clay-pot stews from the wood-fired oven, and çalkama, a pie of wild foraged greens. Choosing is hard work.
“In the Ottoman era Urla’s kitchen was a cosmopolitan melting pot of Rum [Greeks], Bulgarians, Jews, Muslims, Albanians,” says the stylish chef-owner Handan Kaygusuzer as we tuck into her elbasan, slow-cooked lamb shanks finished under a cap of gratinéed yogurt (a recipe from her Albanian grandfather). From the Greek side of her family comes a stew of pinkie-size zucchini with their fleshy flowers and Urla’s prized enginar (artichokes), all braised until silky in rivers of fragrant olive oil.
Kaygusuzer started out 25 years ago with five tables, eventually moving into this historic Ottoman building. “We struggled at first,” she says with a smile, “but now we’re packed!”
Post-lunch, an exploratory ramble reveals an Urla in transition. Sleek olive oil shops and indie boutiques are popping up next to ramshackle teahouses where old men furiously clank at backgammon. Gen Z selfie junkies prowl by carts hawking quinces and butcher shops hung with graphic sheep carcasses.
A short drive north of the city, a breezy promenade runs along the gulf shore. Beyond tethered pleasure craft lies a small U-shaped harbor rimmed with one-man fishing boats and their delicate clutters of nets. But here too, transition: A new design hotel has been suavely converted from an old customs building, its restaurant serving…ceviche and sushi.
Tangerines ripening at OD Urla.
Owner Duygu Özerson at Hiç Lokanta.
Fish crudo with yellow tomatoes at Vino Locale.
Harvesting herbs from OD Urla’s kitchen potager.“During the pandemic, Urla became known as a place where interesting people escaped to, then ended up staying,” says Osman Serdaroğlu, a boyish, bespectacled 37-year-old chef. His modernist stone-and-glass restaurant, Teruar, launched in fateful 2020 right by a Vineyard Route winery. Serdaroğlu’s own story involves computer science studies in his hometown of Izmir and cooking for friends and devouring cookbooks — then taking off for Italy, where he force-immersed himself in the language, graduated from the prestigious Parma culinary academy, and spent five years at Southern Italian alta cucina temples of La Madia in Sicily and Torre Saracena in Campania. “I got yelled at a lot, cried a lot, got squeezed like a lemon,” he recalls, flashing a very Italian grin.
He also absorbed sophisticated cooking techniques and that signature Italian minimalism, which he now applies to local ingredients in his pitch-perfect dishes. Some highlights of our tasting menu: a dreamy almond and goat cheese velouté, punctuated by the crunch of tiny fried okra and acidic bursts of green Sultaniye grapes; a brûlée of Pecorino-like pelit cheese showered with Turkish black truffles; tuna belly in a haunting sauce of smoked squid ink. Serdaroğlu’s tortellini — eggy, floppy things filled with wild fennel and Aegean red mullet in a broth golden from saffron produced by one of his customers — present a truly bella figura.
The next two days pass in a blur of Aegean euphoria. “Have you ever had better seafood?” gulps Barry at Akın’ın Yeri, a rambling stalwart balıkçı (fish restaurant) in the fishing village of Özbek, five miles north of Urla. Our sunny lunch table is crowded with plates of mullet bottarga (fish spawns better in Urla’s deep, salty water, we’re told); rapturous blobs of gently sautéed sea bream liver (the Aegean foie gras); fried fresh anchovies inhaled by the dozen; and majestic blue-tailed shrimp caught just outside.
“Have you ever met a woman so interestingly accomplished?” I marvel on another occasion, after we’ve spent time with Duygu Özerson, a badass Turkish beauty with an M.A. from the Sorbonne and an olive oil certification from five years’ training in Italy. (She also had a modern art gallery in Tripoli, where her Libyan architect husband is from.)
In just a few short years since arriving in Urla, Özerson has created an extraordinary world for herself, including a sustainable forest of 60,000 olive trees and many medicinal plants — “a floral museum of Urla’s biodiversity,” as she describes it. Some of those plants go into teas with poetic names like Chaste Lilac, sold under her label, Hiç Urla.
Meanwhile, she runs a school offering cooking and foraging classes, produces beautiful olive oil, and creates striking glazed ceramics. These serve as tableware at the industrial-chic Hiç Lokanta, her restaurant in a soaring former Greek grape warehouse designed by her husband with sustainable teak, iron, and marble. It anchors Sanat Sokak (Art Street), the fully gentrified main street of Old Urla.
“For us, sustainability is more than just a zero-waste-blah-blah buzzword,” Özerson insists with great passion over a lunch of black-chickpea hummus, dry-aged smoked beet topped with cheese foam, and a haute-folkloric lamb stew served in a bread loaf. “From foraging to irrigation, from heating to production materials, it powers every step of our work. And Urla…Urla always inspires us.”
Our last meal in Urla finds us, once again, in the shade of an olive tree. “It’s the Gemlik variety,” notes Osman Sezener, the tall, indefatigable chef-proprietor of OD Urla restaurant, which sits on a parcel of lush farmland belonging to his family. “Strong, beautiful trees,” he marvels. “My dad cultivates these as if they were his babies.”
A runaway hit since it opened in 2018, OD Urla is the reason I first heard about Urla, the place that tagged it as a destination for gastronauts. Istanbul swells fly in just for a taste of Sezener’s octopus confited in olive oil, finished in a wood-burning oven, and served over a purée of potatoes from a high-altitude farm.
“We have 10 cows and 200 sheep and goat,” he goes on, “and make our own cheese and butter.” His potager right outside? It grows 105 tomato varieties and 300 species of herbs and plants — all curated by French celebrity jardinière Pascal Garbe.
As dusk gathers, the restaurant’s building glows like a magic cube. Illuminated by giant globe lanterns, the outdoor tables set in an olive-tree fairy garden are packed with some 200 diners clinking glasses of Öküzgözü and Misketi, devouring the signature pide (flatbread) topped with unctuous shreds of slow-roasted oxtail. I nurse my botanical sorrel cocktail while Barry contemplates the amuse-bouche of brioche with a provocative shmear of white chocolate under a salty curl of house-cured bottarga.
Scion of a beloved Izmir restaurant family, Sezener graduated from the French Culinary Institute in New York, briefly worked at Le Cirque, and staged at the avant-garde Piazza Duomo in Alba, all the while making pilgrimages to Europe’s best restaurants. Right now he expounds on his plans to introduce an all-Turkish olive oil tasting menu — then offers us a large crinkled olive. It’s hurma zeytin, the world’s only olive, he says, that cures itself on the tree, via a special fungus called Phoma oleae.
Three hours pass, a cascade of deliciousness both rootsy and zeitgeisty. Briny-sweet baby squid over rustic erişte pasta in a creamy sauce of smoked leeks give way to a lamb loin with a just-plucked mini-eggplant on a smooth, grassy grape leaf sauce with a crisp grape leaf garnish — a reminder of Urla’s viticultural heritage.
“Who’d even ever heard of Urla just a few years ago?” Sezener marvels, echoing my own first day’s musing, as we address his pistachio-intensive riff on baklava. “Generally Turks always looked up to Europe as the source of the best dining. But this…” He gestures wide around him. “This makes me so proud to be here.” 
Chef Osman Serdaroğlu at his restaurant Teruar.
OD Urla’s goat cheese and pear mantı.
Bougainvillea in bloom in Sığacık, near Urla.GETTING THERE & AROUND
There are frequent one-hour flights from Istanbul to Izmir’s Adnan Menderes International Airport, a half-hour drive from Urla. The best way to get around is to rent a car.
WHERE TO STAY
Two of our favorite hotels on the peninsula are located in Alaçatı, a 30-minute drive from Urla’s restaurants and wineries. Book well ahead at Alavya, a beguiling, 25-room hideaway converted from a cluster of traditional stone houses. Each room has its own character, decorated by Turkish celebrity designer Hakan Ezer with an eclectic mix of furniture, rich textiles, and striking original artwork. A brightly tiled pool surrounded by flowering trees invites endless lingering; ditto the courtyards and gardens. Ezer also worked his magic on the adorable seven-room Kestelinn, opened in 2023 on one of Alaçatı’s most touristed streets but a serene little world all its own, with a welcoming family vibe. It occupies a beautifully reconstructed traditional house arranged around a verdant courtyard with playfully outsize amphorae. The plush guest quarters have feathery beds, creamy tones offset with dark wood, and antiques; meals feature produce and olive oil from the owners’ farm nearby.
WHERE TO EAT
Vino Locale: An idyllic country restaurant showcasing contemporary Aegean cuisine and farm-fresh ingredients
Beğendik Abi Lokantası: Old-school lunch place with homey dishes laid out buffet-style in an Ottoman-era building
Teruar: Brilliant contemporary Italian cooking with Aegean touches in a modernist dining room amid the vineyards; there is a small hotel here too
Akin’in Yeri: One of the region’s best traditional seafood spots with impeccably prepared, super-fresh catch
Hiç Lokanta: Ultra-sustainable Aegean cuisine in a soaring former Greek grape warehouse in the center of Urla
OD Urla: Celebrity chef Osman Sezener’s wood-fire-fueled cuisine in a charmed, sprawling garden
WINERIES
Stretching south of town, the Urla Vineyard Route is easy to navigate thanks to the helpful map on the website and excellent signposting. Below are some of our favorite wineries.
Urla Winery has extensive, sleekly landscaped grounds; excellent bottlings that often blend Turkish and international grapes; and guided tastings from enthusiastic, knowledgeable young staff.
Vineyard Route pioneer Urlice, founded almost two decades ago by a Turkish couple who’d lived in the States, has a café serving thin-crust pizzas at tables set right in the vineyards.
Hus produces complex, elegant wines, often using Carignane grapes, and has a panoramic restaurant serving polished modern Mediterranean food.
The boutique USCA winery names its excellent wines after Shakespeare’s sonnets and works with local varietals such as the aromatic white Bornova Misketi and an ancient local red grape called Foça Karası.
ALSO…
The world’s largest museum devoted to olive oil, Köstem Zeytinyağı Museum opened in 2016 to celebrate the region’s olive oil history, which dates back to the sixth century B.C. It offers guided tours, olive oil tastings, and workshops.
Uzbaş Arboretum has a gorgeously lush landscape of some 500 species of exotic trees.
—A.v.B.
Anya von Bremzen is a three-time James Beard Award–winning author. She has published six acclaimed cookbooks and a memoir, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking. Her latest book, National Dish, recently came out in paperback.
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