From Gaziantep to the East Village: Meet the Turkish-American Chefs Changing What 'Middle Eastern Food' Means in America

For decades, if you asked an American what Turkish food was, the answer came back fast: kebab, maybe baklava, possibly a gyro that was technically Greek but close enough in their mind. That era is ending. Loudly, deliciously, and on purpose.

Across New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, a generation of Turkish and Middle Eastern chefs who grew up between two worlds is now cooking for audiences ready to meet them halfway. These aren't fusion gimmicks or Instagram aesthetics dressed up as food. These are deeply personal menus built from grandmother recipes, spice market memories, and the kind of culinary ambition that only comes from having something real to prove.

We sat down — figuratively and literally — with five chefs who are rewriting the story.

Defne Aydın, New York City — "I Wanted Americans to Taste My Actual Childhood"

Defne Aydın moved from Izmir to Brooklyn at 22 to study graphic design. She ended up in a commercial kitchen instead, staging at a series of downtown Manhattan restaurants before opening Körfez, her İzmir-inspired seafood and meze spot in the East Village, in 2021.

"Everyone here knew hummus and falafel. But nobody knew tarama. Nobody knew midye dolma the way we eat it standing on the street in İzmir at midnight," she says, laughing. Her signature dish — a smoked fish roe spread served on house-made simit crackers with pickled green tomatoes — has become one of the most talked-about small plates in the city's current dining moment.

Aydın says her American customers often come in expecting something safe and familiar. "They leave confused in a good way. That's the goal."

Tarık Yılmaz, Los Angeles — Anatolian Flavors, California Produce

Chef Tarık Yılmaz grew up in Gaziantep, a city in southeastern Turkey that food historians will tell you is one of the great culinary capitals of the world. He arrived in Los Angeles in 2015 with a culinary degree, a suitcase, and an obsession with antep ezmesi — the smoky, slow-charred pepper paste that defines his home region's cooking.

His Silver Lake restaurant, Ocak, opened in 2022 and immediately drew comparisons to the best modern Levantine spots in the country. But Yılmaz resists the label. "Levantine is a word Americans use. I cook Anatolian. There's a difference, and it matters."

His approach blends Gaziantep tradition with Southern California's extraordinary produce. His lamb beyran soup — a dish Gaziantep residents eat for breakfast — is made with locally sourced lamb and finished with California-grown dried chilies. It's on the brunch menu. It sells out every weekend.

"My mom called me when she saw the menu online. She said, 'Why is breakfast food on the lunch menu?' I told her, 'Because Americans discovered brunch.'" He shrugs with a grin. "She still doesn't fully approve."

Lina Khalil, Chicago — Palestinian Roots, Turkish Training, American Stage

Lina Khalil's story is a little different. Born in Chicago to Palestinian parents, she traveled to Istanbul in her early twenties not to visit family, but to train. She spent three years cooking in Istanbul's restaurant scene, absorbing Ottoman technique, learning the patience behind slow-cooked kuzu tandir, and studying the architecture of a proper Turkish breakfast spread.

Back in Chicago, she opened Sofra & Sons — the name a nod to the Turkish word for dining table — in Logan Square. The menu is a conversation between Palestinian home cooking and Istanbul restaurant culture, and it has resonated in a city with one of the largest Arab-American communities in the country.

"My aunties were suspicious at first," she admits. "They thought I was going to make our food 'fancy' in a way that erased it. But I think they understand now. I'm not replacing anything. I'm adding a chapter."

Her musakhan — traditional Palestinian roasted chicken with sumac and caramelized onions — is served on Ottoman-style flatbread made fresh daily, a technique she learned in Istanbul. It's become the dish that gets photographed, shared, and ordered by every table.

Emre Doğan, Houston — The Engineer Who Became a Pastry Chef

Emre Doğan will be the first to tell you he had no business becoming a chef. He came to Houston on an engineering visa, worked in the energy sector for six years, and spent his weekends making Turkish pastries for his apartment building's communal breakfasts. When neighbors started leaving notes under his door asking if they could buy his börek, something shifted.

Hamur, his small-format bakery and café in Montrose, is now a weekend institution. The focus is Turkish pastry — su böreği, poğaça, revani, şekerpare — made with obsessive attention to technique and presented in a way that makes the unfamiliar feel approachable without dumbing anything down.

"I don't explain the dishes like a museum exhibit," he says. "I just put them in front of people. The food explains itself."

Houston's extraordinary diversity means Doğan's customer base is genuinely global. On any given Saturday morning, his counter seats might hold a Turkish engineer, a Tejano family trying simit for the first time, and a food writer from the Houston Chronicle. "That mix," he says, "is the whole point."

Nadia Öztürk, San Francisco — Fine Dining Meets the Anatolian Pantry

Perhaps the most formally trained of this group, Nadia Öztürk worked at two Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe before landing in San Francisco, where she now helms Toprak, a tasting-menu restaurant that uses the Anatolian pantry as its entire creative framework.

Every dish at Toprak traces back to a specific region of Turkey or the broader Middle East — not as a gimmick, but as a genuine culinary philosophy. A course built around isot pepper from Urfa. A dessert that reconstructs muhallebi using California dairy and local honey. A bread service featuring five regional flatbreads, each with its own dipping preparation.

"Fine dining in America has borrowed from everywhere — Japan, France, Scandinavia," she says. "Anatolia has one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated food cultures. It was only a matter of time."

Waiting lists for Toprak now stretch months out. Critics have noticed. More importantly, the diaspora has noticed — and for many Turkish-Americans who grew up eating versions of these dishes at family tables, dining at Toprak is described as something close to emotional.

What They All Share

Five chefs. Five cities. Five different origin stories. But ask any of them what drives the work and the answer is remarkably consistent: the desire to close the gap between what Americans think this food is and what it actually can be.

They're not angry about the misconceptions. They're just busy correcting them — one börek, one beyran, one sofra at a time.

And if you've been sleeping on Turkish and Middle Eastern cuisine beyond the kebab joint near your office? These chefs have a table waiting for you. Clear your schedule.