Anatolian restaurant chef wins highest cookbook award

The founder and head chef of Anatolian restaurant Çiya won the highest cookbook award with his book Turkish Cookbook. Musa Dağdeviren won the Gourmand award, which is considered the equivalent of a Nobel for cookbooks. The book was published by world-renowned publishing house Phaidon.

Duvar English

A book by the head chef of Çiya, a restaurant famous for its Anatolian food in Istanbul, was awarded a Gourmand award, which is considered the equivalent of a Nobel for cookbooks.

Head chef Musa Dağdeviren's book Turkish Cookbook was written in English and contains over 500 recipes. The book contains recipes for popular dishes, as well as rare local ones, and the publishing house said that it was a first in that it reflected the true variety in Turkish cuisine.

Dağdeviren, who opened his first restaurant on the side of a highway in the southeastern province of Gaziantep in 1987, is known for his significant role in commercializing local tastes from eastern Turkey.

He was also the first cook from Turkey to take part in Netflix's gastronomy docuseries Chef's Table.

The world-renowned publishing house Phaidon published the book and noted that Dağdeviren is the "leading authority in unique food transformations," who played a huge role in introducing Anatolian cuisine to the world at his restaurant Çiya.