7 Mehmet’s Illness and the Lessons It Left Behind

“We lived the same lives, my father and I.”
You will soon understand what I mean by this. But first, my grandfather’s story… It was the mid-1970s… While my father was still in secondary school, my grandfather contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to the Heybeliada Sanatorium in Istanbul for treatment. For a period of time thereafter, he continued travelling back and forth five or six times a year. There, he received medical care, and as he would say, the island air of Istanbul did him good. During this time, the responsibility of the restaurant fell to my father, who was barely in his early twenties, and he began to feel crushed under the weight of it. When my grandfather realised this, he arranged for chefs to be sent regularly to the restaurant from Istanbul, İzmir, Bursa and Bolu — drawing on his wide network and long reach — to support my father. In this way, my grandfather’s period of illness unexpectedly turned into my father’s culinary education. Working with experienced chefs and craftsmen of different backgrounds, my father observed their strengths and began to apply their techniques. We believe that this education, gained from so many different masters during my grandfather’s illness, was the greatest factor that enabled my father to surpass him. In time, my grandfather recovered and returned to the restaurant in Antalya, and until the day he passed away, he continued to stand side by side with my father in the kitchen.