Main
Slow-fired Lamb Neck
200g of lamb, cooked low until it falls apart, over aubergine purée with smoked vegetables.
The courtyard
Miss the door and you walk right past us.
Avlu sits on a back street in Alsancak, behind a door most people walk straight past. Step through and the street ends: a courtyard under a glass roof, an olive tree at its centre, evening light filtering through the leaves onto the tables.
The room is deliberately small. On a Friday night there is rarely a free table — we mention it as a warning, not a boast.
How dinner runs
An evening, in five moves
Dinner here is shared. Plates land in the middle of the table, in this order, and nobody hurries.
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Sourdough and olives
It arrives the moment you sit down, unasked: our own sourdough and a small dish of olives.
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To begin
Liver with fava, warm hummus with fig, lollipop wings in hot spiced sauce. Enough for two, or three.
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Fresh pasta
The dough is rolled daily. Culurgione filled with cheese and walnut; gnocchi crisped in butter.
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The main
Slow fire does the work: twelve-hour brisket, lamb neck over smoked aubergine purée.
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Dessert and coffee
Hazelnut crunch or sour-cherry ganache cheesecake, with Turkish coffee alongside.
Signature plates
Cheese from Kars, dough from Sardinia
Two sources feed this kitchen: Anatolian cheese, tandır and tahini — and Italian dough rolled by hand. They meet on the same plate.
Fresh pasta
Tandır Tagliatelle
Hand-cut tagliatelle with slow-fired lamb, rocket and two-year-aged Kars kaşar.
Fresh pasta
Gnocchi in Cheese Sauce
A sage cream of blue and aged Kars cheese, mushrooms, gnocchi crisped in butter.
To begin
Lollipop Wings
Wings tossed in hot spiced sauce, with slices of garlic bread.
Filled pasta
Culurgione
Sardinia's hand-pleated parcels: fresh cheese, walnut and basil, closed one by one.
Main
Glazed Salmon
Salmon cooked until the skin crackles, set on millet with vegetables.
Where it comes from
How many places one plate takes
The cheese travels to us, the dough is rolled here, the bread is ours from the starter up. The list always ends at the same address.
Kars
Two-year-aged kaşar, blue cheese
Hatay
Sıkma cheese, fried in butter
The Aegean
Olives, figs, purslane, tulum curd
Sardinia
Culurgione — parcels pleated one by one
This kitchen
Sourdough, bazlama, burger buns — all of it here
The glaze
No two plates are the same
Every plate that leaves this kitchen was thrown by hand. The blue glaze runs in the kiln, pools at the base and thins at the rim — which is why no two are ever copies.
Plating onto that surface is a choice: when the fork moves, a different blue appears beneath.
By the glass
You don't have to commit to a bottle
Most of the list comes from Turkish vineyards. Four wines are poured by the glass, so you can change course with the table.
Ezel Shiraz
Red · Shiraz
Ezel Vaska
Red · Merlot
Ezel Saressa
White · Narince
Ezel Rosemingo
Rosé · Kalecik Karası
Guests
Their words, not ours
4,8 312 Google reviews
“A hidden, genuinely special room. You can't tell from outside — you have to go in.”
“The sauce and filling of the culurgione were lovely. Everything was above average.”
“They start you with olives and sourdough bread. The food was really very good.”
Visit
Finding us takes a little care
- Address Alsancak, İzmir Through the street door
- Hours 12:00 – 22:30 The kitchen takes last orders half an hour before close
- Phone 0542 624 24 68
- WhatsApp Message us
- Service Dining room · takeaway · delivery
The room is small, so weekends are hard without a reservation. For parties over eight, please call.
Book a table