Between idea and technique.
A plate should carry the material somewhere new without letting you forget where it came from.
Born in Istanbul, 1997. Trained as a cook, then worked in kitchens in the United States and Germany; won MasterChef Türkiye in 2020. Today he leads the kitchen at Mezra in Bodrum's Yalıkavak and is the founder of White Burger and White Pizza.
Seeing a fig on its tree in Aydın and cutting it in the kitchen are not the same act. The first is looking; the second is deciding. In the time between, the material changes and so do you. You make the same plate a hundred times, and on the hundred-and-first you notice something. Sometimes a mistake opens a path that perfect repetition hid for years. In this kitchen memory is an ingredient, and so is time. The rest is hand, fire and waiting.
Before deciding what it should become, look at what it is. A fig tells you when to cut it; you only learn to listen.
A familiar method becomes a limit the day it stops being questioned. The most dangerous recipe is the one that always works.
A failed attempt can point somewhere a perfect repetition never will. Taste it before you throw it away.
Duration is not a footnote under the recipe; it is the material itself. A keşkek is made of the hours it spends in the cauldron.
The plate is not where the process ends but where the conversation starts. What arrives at the table is not an answer but a question.
A kitchen that works like a small village on seven decares of land, with its own garden, barn and seed bank. Nothing from outside Türkiye's geography enters; a fixed, seasonal tasting menu is served to the whole table at once.
Michelin Green Star (2025) · One Michelin Star (2026 guide) · Two tasting menus of 8–10 and 12–14 courses.
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A smash burger concept that started as a single shop in Kadıköy's Moda; today twenty-four branches across Türkiye and in Erbil. The same discipline at another scale.
Gault&Millau Türkiye 2025 — 1 Toque, Street Food.
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A pizza concept built on New York and Detroit style dough, sold by the slice and whole. Signature: white sauce, mozzarella, white cheese, cherry tomatoes, ranch and pesto.
2026
The 2026 Michelin Guide awarded Mezra Yalıkavak a star. The Green Star and the Young Chef Award had come the year before. Three awards, the same seven decares.
Mezra will not be replicated. A kitchen bound to its location, its own field and the producers around it cannot be moved; moved, it becomes something else. This year's question is how to direct the attention a star brings toward the material rather than the plate.
Raw, roasted and fermented are not the same head of garlic; they are three ingredients, and each does a different job on the plate.
Ula garlic is sharp when raw, almost bitter. After an hour in oil over a low flame it sweetens and turns nutty. After weeks sealed in a jar it blackens and its smell moves toward fruit. Three voices from one ingredient. Deciding which one speaks on the plate takes longer than the recipe itself.
An extra minute sometimes ruins a recipe and sometimes writes it. To tell the difference you first have to taste.
Salt carries not its own taste but the taste of whatever sits beside it. In the right amount nobody notices it; in the wrong amount nobody notices anything else.
Let's develop an idea together.
For projects, collaborations and press, reach out through the channels below. Reservations for Mezra are made through the restaurant's own site.
