The table in front of me is plate-to-plate with food. There are platters of lemon-drizzled clams on ice, pillowy oysters baked in parmesan, dishes of bottarga and tuna tartare, and spiny sea urchins, caught a matter of miles away from my table.
To me, it looks like the meal of a lifetime. Yet, as I quickly discovered in Bodrum, Turkey, this feast, served at sea-view restaurant Orfoz, is not that unusual for the city.
Added to the Michelin guide in November 2023, the city and the wider Bodrum Peninsula are dusted with starred, Bib Gourmand, and Michelin-recommended restaurants.
At Karul, I found a table among the jasmine, lemon and olive trees of the restaurant garden and tore into lavash bread, puffed up like a cushion by the tandoor oven, mini lahmacun (Turkish pizza), beyti kebabs and a smoky muhammara (pepper and walnut) dip, which is so good I defended the final spoonful as fiercely as the proverbial final Rolo.
While at Tuti, I took part in a wine tasting on the terrace, trying endemic kalecik karası and narince wines, as the masts of a dozen yachts swayed tipsily in the waters of Bodrum Harbour in the distance.
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Michelin’s arrival in Bodrum marks the latest chapter in the city’s coming-of-age story.
During the 1970s, the peninsula became popular with well-to-do writers and artists seeking refuge from the heat of Istanbul. Yet by the 1990s, the city and close surrounds had developed more of a reputation for being a budget package-holiday destination where Brits came to suntan, buy fake designer handbags, and drink cheap shots on Bar Street – one reference from the time gives Bodrum the nickname ‘The Bedroom of Europe’, due to the after-dark antics that took place on this strip.
However, a stream of five-star hotel openings in the cubby hole coves around the coast this century kickstarted Bodrum’s ascendency to A-list holiday destination status. When Kate Moss visited in 2015, its credentials as an up-and-coming pleaser of the well-heeled was sealed – and it’s clear to see today.
Bodrum is interchangeably called the ‘Turkish Saint Tropez’, ‘the Aegean’s answer to Ibiza’, and – most recently – ‘the new Mykonos’, and there are certainly similarities to all of these destinations in the area.
As I sipped a chalice-sized cocktail of gin, basil and balsamic, listenig to a DJ-spun soundtrack of soft Balearic beats fused with the fizz of breaking waves at Flamm beachclub, on the north coast of the peninsula, I was instantly put in mind of Ibiza.
While wandering among the boxy whitewashed, bougainvillea-framed buildings of the old town and around the 18th-century windmills that crown the hilltops a few miles away, I can’t help thinking of Mykonos.
My hotel – while not one of those that came with its own helipads and private butlers – is befitting of all these places, too. The public spaces of The Marmara Bodrum are dripping with kooky artworks and my room had a retreat-like calm to it thanks to an abundance of natural materials and earthy palatte.
Comparing Bodrum to these other locations doesn’t really do it justice, though. This region has a personality of its very own.
The city is flush with a one-of-a-kind history. Known as Halicarnassus in ancient Greek times, it was the capital of the Caria region and the seat of ruler Mausolus whose tomb – the scant remains of which can still be seen in modern-day Bodrum – was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
One of the best ways to dig into the history of Bodrum and the multiple civilisations that have left their imprint on the region over the centuries is to visit Bodrum Castle.
I lose all track of time here as the artifacts and displays sweep me between the castle’s 14 halls, where information boards gossip about everything from the shipwrecks that have taken place off Bodrum’s shores to the Knights Hospitaller who arrived on the peninsula in the 14th century and were responsible for building the castle.
Bodrum also has a burgeoning wine scene. Ensconced in the hills of the Karanova Valley, a 40-minute drive from Bodrum city centre, Karnas Vineyard looks like it has been teleported in from Tuscany. The winery itself is all blush-coloured bricks and arched doorways and the grounds are pronged with cypress trees.
In the cool of Karnas’s cellars, where classical music is played even after closing to keep the wines company, I sip my way through a wine flight of jammy zinfandels, peppery syrahs, and tropical vermentinos and try to calculate how many bottles I would be able to take home in my suitcase without going over my luggage weight limit.
Over the last few drops, my mind turns to the chameleon quality of Bodrum and all the ways it has morphed over the centuries. My gut tells me that this city of knights, models and millionaires hasn’t stopped surprising us just yet.
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