After meandering through the arid Aegean landscape–twisted olive-tree trunks shivering in the hot summer breeze–Od Urla’s main structure emerges from its glasshouse camouflage of endlessly reflected daylight. Tables are set under the olive trees where people sit around drinking their wine and listening to Od’s cooks explain every dish in loving detail. Inside, the dining room looks out over a verdant landscape of Aegean shrubbery and trees, a bit of an impressionist work where the brush strokes sometimes become lost in the many hues of green. Herbs and vegetables grow in the restaurant’s own garden, the starting point for many of Od’s dishes, or a childhood dream of its chef Osman Sezener, a place to experiment with materials from the soil and the sea in the region where he was born.
Dishes are best shared in order to traverse the menu as widely as possible. The classic Turkish mantı, a kind of hand-pinched dumpling, is larger than usual and filled with a creamy and fragrant goat cheese, its slight saltiness mollified with a caramelized pear sauce. The wood grill, centerpiece of Od’s open kitchen, slightly chars the tender tentacles of octopus caught by local fishermen and served with a sweet and sour fermented pomegranate syrup. The lavaş, an understated flatbread usually used to transport pieces of greasy kebab directly into the mouth, gains new purpose with a topping of grilled oxtail smeared with sweet fig molasses from Aydın.
In the evening, everything changes, as lamps in the shape of globes bring a soft artificial light into the grove, the glass house losing its camouflage, the open kitchen completely visible with its perfectly orchestrated rhythm of preparation and service. From the garden, the land, the sea, into the fire and onto the plate, into people’s lives. With Sezener at its helm.
Feride Yalav-Heckeroth 