Unearthing and digging into flavours of turkey
IHAVE never been to Turkey, but if I ever go, I would love to visit some of the famous archaeological sites, starting with Çatalhöyük, Göbeklitepe and Sagalassos. With so much buried history, Turkish universities naturally offer a range of degree courses in archaeology, and at least one past student has settled in Cape Town.
However, Tayfun (“Typhoon”) Aras is not wielding a trowel and a paintbrush in some dusty excavation. Instead, he’s cooking up a storm in Anatoli, Cape Town’s Turkish restaurant located at 24 Napier Street, Green Point, in an area that is believed to be archaeologically rich in undocumented slave and Khoisan burials.
Aras’s first business venture was a successful tourist shop in Marmaris on the coast of Turkey, but he moved to Cape Town to please his South African wife.
In August 2003, they bought the Anatoli Restaurant, housed in an old coach house, which had been in existence since 1984. They knew it well, as it had been a favourite destination during their annual visits to Cape Town before they relocated.
Since then, they have developed it into the city’s premier Turkish restaurant, richly decorated and full of visual surprises – a magnet for the small local expatriate community and a delightful culinary experience for new South African patrons.
Aras learned to cook in his family home in Ankara and the food is authentic but slightly adapted for local palates.
Turkey lies at the crossroads between Europe and Asia and was once the centre of the vast Ottoman Empire, so it has absorbed recipes from Greece, North Africa, the Caucasus and the Mediterranean basin.
One of his early challenges was to source the correct ingredients for his mezzes (small dishes or appetisers), main courses and delicious desserts. Nowadays, the elusive spices, dried fruits, sausages and coffees are available locally, which has reduced pressure in the Anatoli kitchen.
It’s tough to sustain niche restaurants during economic downturns, but Aras has managed to survive the storms and maintain Anatoli’s reputation. Now he has produced a book about his life, his restaurant and its cuisine which is as visually rich as the décor in the coach house. Published by Human & Rousseau, Anatoli: Authentic Turkish Cuisine was launched earlier this week.
The recipes are exciting, different and not too difficult to make (providing home chefs lay in some of the essential ingredients listed in the introduction). These include spices, bulgur (a cereal), chickpeas, filo pastry, aubergines, okra, pine nuts, pomegranate molasses and tahini.
Having sampled the delights of his restaurant, it occurred to me that if Aras is looking for a third career, he would be the ideal person to lead an archaeological and gastronomic tour to Turkey. Now that’s something to dream about…