I was born in Mersin, Turkey in 1986. I spent my childhood in a very beautiful city, among beautiful people. I was a chubby boy back then. I loved chocolate, icecream and sweets. I moved to İstanbul when I was 6. I was mad about hamburger and pizza in my primary school years. My favourite meal was chips and meatballs. I got accepted to the Saint Benoit French Secondary School when I was 12. During the 7 years I spent there, I loved eating warm-cold hamburger, chips fried in oil that was reused many times, and cold sandwiches. What this beautiful school brought me was the opportunity to get acquainted with an important part of French culture, wine. Back then in Mersin, I had not heard of the word wine in my life. To be honest, I had not heard of any drinks other than rakı back then.
Finishing high school, I attended to Sabancı University to study at the Faculty of Information Management. I binged myself in the disgusting pasta dishes made at school in the evenings, cold pizza slices, lentil meatballs my nextdoor mate’s mum sent him at the dormitory, cheap wine and vodka day and night. But it was then that I started realizing some things were changing. Ordinary tastes did not appeal to me anymore. I started looking for quality in food and wine. Even when I was serving my military service in Erzurum, I set out to find local tastes in my free time, whereas my friends were rushing to internet cafes. When I married my wife in 2013, I was such a food lover to go to the food capital San Sebastian in Spain for our honeymoon. On route, I visited many countries, cities and towns.
I am sure you will find something about yourself while reading my past above. That’s why I believe I grew up in a similar food path as many of you did, and probably have the same taste in food. Only with one difference. I am in love with “taste” more than you are. Hence, there will be many of you liking my comments ,and also many of you disliking and disagreeing with them .I am trying to be as fair as I can be while evaluating each place, so I trust my judgment of taste. I’m trying to popularize good food in Turkey by following the path of those who paved the way for good food in our country.
Please bear in mind this golden rule while visiting my website: The best palatal delight is yours, and if you like, the best restaurant in the world can be the cheap lunchroom in your neighbourhood … What I aim to do is to enlighten you on this path. However, it will be “you” finding the truest for yourselves. I’m a food critic not God! Thank you for spending your time visiting my website.
Fahri Gediz.
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