Yes, a paradigm shift is taking place, and this is not real estate, villa construction or swelling tax revenues. Foreigners love Turkish food: It is one of the things they like best about our country. The Mediterranean diet is legendary for its wholesome and nourishing merits. But foreign palates are ambitious and inquisitive, and this has prompted a new crop of restaurants, cafés and bistros to stimulate local palates and experiment with innovative tastes and flavors. New venues are in the town center and on the adjoining peninsula. Kaş has not previously seen European, Asian and fusion-style cuisine, and established local restaurants, like Eriş, Mercan, Blue House and Bahçe have held sway with traditional Turkish fare, some since the 1950s.
Expatriates of diverse nationalities, many with Turkish partners or spouses, now make up about 10 percent of the population of Kaş, so it was only a matter of time before cross-cultural currents started to make themselves felt in many areas of local life, including new twists on gastronomy. The new kids on the block cater to gifted transnational eaters. Euro-whingers missing their national cuisine may need to adjust their taste buds.
The town already has about 75 restaurants, bars, patisseries, cafés, coffee shops and clusters of home-grown bufés. So a fair question is who needs more? Time will tell who stays in and out of business, but nothing spices up competitive juices as thoroughly as variety and innovation. So, welcome to the refreshing tables, kitchens and cultural variety that are tacking Kaş on cool itineraries.
Here are some post-election pick-me-ups found in and around Kaş:
Akropol Bar, Restaurant Café
He’s Turkish. She’s Austrian. They have snacks, salads, coffees and a superlative brunch down to a T -- for terrific. The view over the mountains and sheltered inland bay of the Kaş peninsula is captivating. When you need a bit of rural respite, Akropol makes a culinary detour more than worthwhile.
Beyhan Cenkçi Caddesi, Çukurbağ Yarım Adası (Peninsula Road), Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 28 78
Echo Café and Bar
The mood and the music compete with the dreamy view over the harbor in this oh-so-smart and groovy bar. The melody menu boasts jazz, acid jazz, nu-jazz, groove, ambient and hi and lo-fi. Along with all that jazz, you also find high speed Internet access.
Uzunçarşı Caddesi, Gürsoy Sokak, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 20 47
www.echocafebar.com
Effendi Café and Bar
Once a carpet shop, Magic Orient, (this is now at the back), Effendi is the most contemporary, cool and amazing bar and the music pulls in the crowds. Özgür belts out classics and swing and accompanies himself on guitar. Barış does his soft drum bit. This neat venue morphs into a café by day.
Cumhuriyet Meydani 1, (end of Hükümet Caddesi), Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 37 75
Kaşım Restaurant
The Mardin chef has created his own “My Kaş” restaurant with breezy orange and yellow décor. Classic oven-baked pizzas, snacks and salads as well as more sustaining Turkish favorites are on offer. Fast or slow food as the mood and hunger level takes you. They have a convenient take-out service.
Öztürk Sokak 15, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 20 52
Libera Bookshop
There is much of the Ye Olde Bookshoppe atmosphere in a traditional Kaş house. Features a brilliant and carefully chosen selection of books in Turkish, English and German. Knowledgeable proprietress knows her clientele and has a great eye for “shelf life.” A clubby reading room is on the upper floor.
Uzunçarşı Caddesi 14, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 43 96, liberakitabevi@yahoo.com
Lighthouse - Deniz Feneri
We don’t know of a lighthouse here, but this is a culinary beacon of outstanding merit. The chef is local and transferred from Muzedechanga, a restaurant in İstanbul. The food delights in color, aroma and brilliant fusion flavors. Go into another world in the spa: It’s light and bright with mountain views (no below stairs basements here) and wonderfully professional without being intimidating or bossy.
Twenty seven self-contained, luxurious “pods” make up the hotel accommodation built into the hillside.
Beyhan Cenkçi Caddesi, Çukurbağ Yarım Adası (Peninsula Road), Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 27 41, Fax: (0242) 836 27 42, info@dflighthouse.com, www.exclusiveescapes.co.uk
Liman Coffee House
The Turkish-Greek owner has eclectic, upbeat ideas about coffee drinking and café society in Kaş. His tiny coffee house is sparse, clean, clinically designed, and machines take the bean-work out of making aromatic coffees. Overlooking the yacht harbor, you can WiFi while slurping a smoothie or coffee milkshake.
Liman Caddesi, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 16 50
Maya Restaurant
This is the only restaurant on Kaş’ cobbled shopping street (Uzun Çarşısı). Head for the pretty, leafy garden at the back. The menu runs to many pages and is very comprehensive, featuring mainly Turkish and international dishes. Interesting desserts. The succulent lamb shank justifies the encores.
Uzunçarşı Caddesi, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 23 90
Midtown Café-Bistro
He’s Turkish. She’s American. But they met in Brooklyn and lugged along some admirable Big Apple artistic and culinary talents when they married and settled in Kaş. Midtown Café-Bistro is the closest you’ll get to NYC in Turkey. The burgers are juicy and done to a turn. But most people come for the music, cool jazz and blues, and the freshly made lemonade served in a pitcher frothed with egg flip. Then there are the superb fries, the homemade paté and the wine and cheese evenings . . .
İlk Okul Sokak 3, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 43 84, midtown.cafe.bistro@gmail.com
Pasha Café
He’s Turkish. She’s English. Refreshing and tasty selection of salads, hot and cold snacks and sandwiches and frosty drinks. Afternoon tea and homemade cakes on offer. The carrot cake is scrumptious. There are a zillion choices of hot and iced coffees and teas to sample while you beam into the wireless Internet. Great for just chilling out.
Öztürk Sokak, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 13 89
Saffron Restaurant
This is the first Asian-Thai restaurant in Kaş. It’s authentic and the menu is ambitious by any standard, but it succeeds. They have weekend fixed-price specials. Chicken with lemon grass and coconut milk deserves accolades. They feature curries and delectable and different desserts. A Jamaican dish was recently spotted on the menu.
Merkez Mahallesi, Öztürk Sokak 17, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 20 37
Unique Art
Here you will delight in the most intriguing Ottoman and Turkic garments found anywhere. Some are antique cultural treasures. Some are gorgeous, others are elegant and a few just outrageous but there is much to detain and tempt you in this unusual treasure trove, a branch of a well-known name in İstanbul’s Covered Bazaar.
Uzunçarşı Caddesi 19, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 37 95, İstanbul: (0212) 528 11 73, tuncayarslan60@hotmail.com
Wagner’s Restaurant
Open from 3 p.m. every day, except Wednesday. Banish the cliché of hearty or heavy Germanic fare. Kirsten Wagner is a professional cook par excellence and has made a career of cooking and teaching others how to do it. She’s as dedicated as Julia Child! The menu changes daily depending on market flavors and freshness. They excel at entrecote and filet steaks. On special occasions there is homemade Italian pasta. Located on the town’s fringes, you will be rewarded if you search out this unpretentious gastronomic jewel.
Yeni Camii Sokak 3, Kaş, Tel: (0242) 836 37 24
Kaş, Bir Zamanlar -- Kaş’s Concealed Heritage
A photography exhibition portraying Kaş in retrospect has united the town as never before. The black and white images are all of the town in B.C. (Before Construction) and long before it became a tourist dive. The venerable and notable showed up on the opening evening, sponsored by the Kaş Tourism Promotion Association, and many relived their formative years, recognized their fathers as mayors in previous decades and themselves and siblings as babes in arms between about 1920 and 1960.
Much interest focused on a photo of a slim and youthful Erdal İnönü posing with Deniz Baykal, barely out of his teens. They stand on the shoreline (there was no breakwater then) with Ali Eriş, a Kaş member of the Ankara Journalists’ Union and close confidante of former union president Beyhan Cenkçi, who was laid to rest in Kaş.
New historical perspectives emerged, like the image of Government House in the 1940s with its conspicuous pigeon coops. The birds were homing pigeons who “flew” official edicts. This might quash the persistent local rumor that an underground telephone cable existed between Kaş and the offshore island of Castellorizo. Kaş was hooked up with the national electricity grid in the 1980s and the coastal road was not completed until the 1960s. Turkish tourists visited, but the journey took four days from Antalya -- by donkey. A civil service posting was not necessarily a promotion.
The exhibition is the lens-child of Salim Özgilik, owner of Midtown Café-Bistro. “We do culture, not just burgers.” For five months Özgilik sourced, categorized and computerized all the photographs, scanned them, had them artistically framed and persuaded Kaş’s mayor, Halil Kocaer, to turn a sports hangout into an arts center. Already, additional space is required to accommodate the hundreds of other historical photographs that have emerged from the attics and albums of Kaş. This nostalgic retracing of time continues for the rest of the summer, and don’t be surprised if it is extended due to further surges of nostalgia.
