Cooks Grove- Exploring The Geography Of Food

ŞEMSA DENIZSEL HAD THE COURAGE TO DO THE ONE THING THAT MILLIONS OF ISTANBULITES PERVERSELY DREAM OF ON A REGULAR BASIS: SHE QUIT THE CITY COLD TURKEY. TODAY, MANAGING TIME AT HER OWN PACE, SHE DEDICATES IT TO ENSURING THAT ON THE GLOBAL GASTRONOMY MAP, NORTHERN AEGEAN CUISINE GETS THE RECOGNITION IT DESERVES

- Marzena Romanowska

It’s in Şemsa Denizsel’s DNA to exceed expectations. After 18 years in Kantin, which as she nonchalantly puts it, started as a place where she “wanted to cook the way she wanted to eat, but it turned out better than expected,” a new path unfolded in front of her. Celebrated Istanbul chef and owner of a restaurant that irreversibly changed the city’s gastro dynamics, settled in the area she’s known for four decades to realize her dream, or three dreams to be exact: to put Northern Aegean geography on the gastronomic map, to raise a new generation of food enthusiasts through an apprentice program, and to live in an olive grove overlooking the sea.

Master planner at the core, in 2014 Denizsel did something completely unexpected. As she recalled having dinner at Ayna restaurant in Cunda, one of her favorite places in the area, she heard of an olive grove for sale. After seeing it the next day against the sun setting over the Aegean Sea, she immediately knew it was going to be the base for her next step. Within two days, she put the Cooks Grove plan into motion. “Overnight, I had the entire idea ready in my head,” she told The Guide Istanbul. When we visited her there in October, she was welcoming participants of the Local Delicacies program at sunset as well. Call it a well-thought-out marketing strategy or a lucky coincidence, but the first impression left everyone in awe, just as it had a few years earlier for Denizsel herself.

OLIVE CULTURE