Tulum Turkish Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

Dining at the award winning Tulum Turkish Restaurant in Balaclava. Spoiler alert: it was not worth it at all ☹️.

We chose the 6-course degustation menu with upgraded mains (steak) and non-alcoholic wine pairings.

1st course - the highlight of the tasting course. Unfortunately, the bread was hard, and the cheese unpleasant. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the date butter! Such an interesting combination. The lentil dip felt mealy, and there wasn't enough bread to properly enjoy all the dips. The olives and olive oil were nice - a solid 3/5.

2nd course - unfortunately, the borek was average and tasted like a cheese toastie. The truffle didn't add anything to the dish, and all you could taste was the cheese.

3rd course - I love scallops, but this was the most disappointing dish of the set! They were "cooked" in the acidic lemon juice, and was so overwhelming. The peas were uncooked, which didn't help. The whole dish was overwhelming and tasted awful.

4th course - visually appealing, but doughy and drenched in oil! Very little filling inside and lacked seasoning not to mention tough in texture. All of the dishes overuse oil! It fills you up, but doesn't taste good. This dish felt like an oil soup. We didn't finish it and asked for it to be taken away. The service really slipped from here on.

5th course - a single cold steak to share is incredibly disappointing. We weren't asked how we wanted it cooked, and it arrived rubbery and overdone! We waited a long time for this dish, and weren't served a drink until much later. The sauces were fine and the charcoal was nice, but again, it was a cold steak. At this point, the staff were closing shop but didn't tell us to leave. Poor service to allow someone to book a tasting course several hours before closing, only to close up around them. The salad was incredibly disappointing, and it was far bigger than the steak.

6th course - the dessert was underwhelming. The cake was dry and mealy, and the sorbet had a slushy texture. The components didn't work well together and tasted unpleasant!

Non-alcoholic wine pairings - the most disappointing pairing I've ever tried. They all smelt and tasted the same (like vinegar) and added nothing to the dish to be a genuine pairing! They don't complement the dishes, nor taste pleasant on their own.

Service - The staff don't explain the dishes or the set course options clearly. It was at least a 15 - 20 minute wait between courses, which is NOT what you want for a degustation. At one point, the air conditioning was turned off, and the room became uncomfortably warm. When we returned an unfinished dish, the staff responded with poor energy. It's okay if a dish isn’t to our taste, but the attitude we received was unprofessional.

There was also an error on our bill at checkout. While mistakes happen, the attitude we received when pointing it out did not reflect well on the business. We paid in cash (bill close to $400) to receive the cash discount as advertised (5%), which the server missed. I had to catch the error myself as we were leaving.

When booking, you could select dietary requirements and special events (for which it was). At other high-end places, the servers are attentive to our selections beforehand, but here, we were asked again. This isn't a big deal, but it does reflect poorly on the level of service.

I try to find positives about every place I visit, but unfortunately, there was very...

From the moment me and my boyfriend walked into the restaurant we were not welcomed and made to feel uncomfortable. I told the waitress our booking details who said: “did you phone the other day”, I said “no”, when we sat inside it was extremely warm, we asked if we could sit outside and the waitress said, “I guess”. When we sat outside she said we could only eat from the banquet, I said due to my allergies what options do I have? She said she didn’t know. We asked to speak with the chef who was also the owner and did not tell us, until we asked to speak with the owner later. When the chef/owner came to our table he asked me 3 TIMES “Can you have onions and garlic?”, I advised I had noted this in my booking and wanted to know why no one called if this can’t be catered for, he said “I don’t know why that happened”. We asked what options were available for me he said “Nothing, you can’t eat anything from the menu”, he then mentioned “you can maybe have these two options”. He basically implied I was lying and he wanted us to leave because he was too LAZY to cater for my allergies, being a chef and restaurant owner, this should be common sense to cater for any type of allergy when wanting continued business with customers. I’m Turkish myself and can cook traditional dishes without onions and garlic, it’s not impossible to do so. When we asked him to check for more options in the kitchen and come back to us, he said “I’m not coming back”. He left, and the waitress asked if we wanted to order we said no we are really disappointed in the service and don’t feel comfortable and to bring out the owner, she said we were just speaking with him, so he came back out and “So what’s it going to be?” I said, “you have been really unprofessional and made us feel really unwelcomed you haven’t even apologised for the situation” he said, “yes I did I said I was sorry before”. Then he started getting aggressive with my partner and threatened to call the police?! Such a shame all we wanted to do was go out for a nice meal and being locals and all, we went for dinner at MS. Carlisles which was lovely the food and service. It’s very disappointing when businesses are so ungrateful for the customers they could have, after having a pandemic you would think most hospitality businesses would do the best they can to cater and welcome their customers not interrogate and threaten them. I have told my family and friends who will also not be coming to this restaurant, I had some of my friends say they wanted to try Tulum, after I told them about my experience they have all agreed not to try it, so more of a loss for this...

Tulum 7 COURSE DEGUSTATION $110 PP ANADOLU ⭐️- EKMEK (OLIVE OIL | LENTIL KOFTE |SMOKED DATE BUTTER | OLIVES 🥖 🧈 IZMIR - GLOBE ARTICHOKES | CARROT | HAZELNUT | POTATO | EDIRNE - FREMANTLE OCTOPUS | FERMENTED TARHANA SPICED YOGHURT | TULUM CHEESE | TURKISH SUCUK BREAD CRUMBS 🐙 KAYSERI ⭐️- TURKISH BEEF DUMPLINGS | GARLIC YOGHURT |ALEPPO CHILLI | MINT | BURNT BUTTER HATAY- SEMOLINA KIBBEH | SPICED LAMB | WALNUT | CURRANTS| CUMIN | BUTTERMILK SAUCE 🥧 or SU BOREGI TURKISH SPECIAL BOREK ⭐️- BLACK TRUFFLE AGED CHEESE EMULSION, DRIED YOGHURT SHARD 🧀 MARDIN - BRAISED LAMB SHOULDER | SMOKED EGGPLANT PUREE | APRICOT JAM | CUMIN BULGUR PILAF | BEETROOT MOLASSES 🐑 or BALIK- RAINBOW TROUT, BRAISED SMOKED LEEKS, SULTANAS, BLACK TARAMA BUTTER 🐟 ISTANBUL ⭐️ - OTTOMAN SULTANS FAVORITE CINNAMON, CHICKEN AND MILK PUDDING 🐔🍨

Tried their charcoal chicken sandwich during lockdown and I have been longing to visit Tulum again. They did live up to my expectations. I was amazed by the delicacy of each course on the degustation menu! Three dishes really stood out to me. First one was the bread and date butter! You didn’t hear me wrong! The bread was one of the best I had! Fresh from the oven, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. It complimented so well with that smooth and sweet date butter. We kept refilling the bread because it was just too moreish! I’m not a lamb eater so they gave me the Turkish Truffle Borek which was mind blowing! Texture was textbook perfect, you could see and taste every single layers. The truffle cheese emulsion had a bold flavour but every elements just sang together. Thirdly, the chicken and milk pudding dessert. I finally understood why this dish was showcased on Masterchef. The creativeness of using chicken as the crispy element of the dessert really blown me off! That was a flawless dessert except the ice cream melted too fast! Tulum has done a great job in showcasing the beauty of Turkish food. I truly enjoyed the warm hospitality from the team. $110 to enjoy food of this standard is more than reasonable. No doubt 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

——————————————— Charcoal Grilled Chicken Shish Sandwich $15 🐓🥖🧅

Got attracted by the crowd and the smokey flavour while strolling around Balaclava. For sure it is one of the best sandwiches I had recently. The chicken was beautiful charred, tender and succulent! It was served in a buttered and grilled bread along with onions and a special sauce! It was delightful to enjoy this sanga! The pop up food truck is available only during lockdown!!...