Travelers come to Cappadocia, Turkey, for its extraordinary panorama of caves and fairy chimneys, rock church buildings and valleys – the otherworldly backdrop for dawn flights of rainbow-hued hot air balloons.
Until just lately, these charismatic and Instagram-famous touchstones overshadowed the area’s culinary choices, which span hearty stews, hand-shaped mantı dumplings, and wines made out of indigenous grape varieties. Now, that is altering. Cappadocia cooks are researching near-forgotten recipes, asserting a hyper-local terroir utilizing heritage elements like alyanak wheat and Bitirgen apricots. They’re racking up accolades: a restaurant whose menus showcase historical flavours simply earned the area’s first-ever Michelin star.
Here are our high picks for the best restaurants in Cappadocia, whether or not you are in search of a home-style meal in a women-run cooperative, a leisurely village lunch, or firelit dinners in a hillside cave.
Revithia
Seasonal eight- or five-course tasting menus at Michelin-starred Revithia, in the Unesco-listed Kayakapı neighborhood of Ürgüp, pay homage to the area’s Turkish, Greek Orthodox and Armenian roots – the results of chef Durhan Özdemir’s years of analysis into native meals historical past. The kitchen eschews Mediterranean elements like olive oil and lemons for a purely Cappadocian pantry; a tasting menu may characteristic delicate baş cheese dusted with powdered grapes, fava bean-stuffed vine leaves, or tandoor-cooked veal cheeks sweetened with sun-dried apricots. Wood fires illuminate the comfy 25-seat cave eating room in the winter, and through heat months, tables spill onto an open-air terrace with sweeping valley views. Don’t miss: wine pairings highlighting Cappadocia’s assertive wines embody hard-to-find bottles from boutique natural winery Vinolus in close by Kayseri.
Lil’a
Ancient artefacts adorn rooms and customary areas at Uçhisar’s Relais & Châteaux-listed Museum Hotel – a gallery-like property whose flagship farm-to-table restaurant Lil’a fittingly explores the area’s gastronomic historical past. Culinary director Tolga Tosun has helped lead Cappadocia’s resurgent curiosity in heritage elements, planting alyanak wheat, topaç garlic and Bitirgen apricots in the lodge’s orchards and gardens. Refined a-la-carte and tasting menus unearth outdated recipes you are unlikely to see anyplace else, like yahni, a slow-cooked lamb shoulder served with green-wheat pilaf and pickled grapes, or cheese-filled peravu dumplings brightened by peppery basil. A wine checklist of Turkish vintages features a considerate collection of Cappadocian bottles, together with home label Le Musée made with grapes grown in the lodge’s 200-acre White Valley winery.