Fava Alacati — Restaurant in Çeşme

The atmosphere is really nice here. Chill music, nice ambient light and quite large space (you would not think so only looking from the entrance) so it’s quite enjoyable to have diner in such atmosphere.

The service is decent, but has some space to improve. We ordered two starters with two mains. Surprisingly the main was served before we finish our starters 😅 Also one of mains we had is steak, ordered medium rare, but at first was served well done. The waiter helped to change it without problem. The new one is medium rare as ordered. At the end of the meal, we did not order dessert, both of us are not really dessert persons after a heavy diner. But the waiter offered roasted chickpeas ice cream from the house. Surprisingly, it is quite nice, never had ice cream with such flavor.

Now back to the food, I am a bit critical here, only 3 star considering the price. Two starters with two mains and one glass of roze, in total, it cost 4378 TRY (118.80 EUR) In the past days, in the similar or even a bit lower price range, we got way better food. Same price range we can get better food in The Netherlands too.

For starters, we had “Fava Tekmil” and “Fried Calamari”. The quality of calamari is quite good.

For main, we had “Deniz Levrek Fileto Izgara (Sea bass grilled fillet with gratin dauphinois, red onion and green stuff)” The first bite from top side is nice, grilled well and nice flavor. However, the bottom side which is the skin side does not seem grilled or not enough at least. So the skin is soft and tastes too fishy. The green stuff is only few sla leaves. “Dana Madalyon (The unbeatable classic, not so classic. Grilled beef medallion with vegetables)” as mentioned above, the first time when it served it is fully cooked instead medium rare as ordered, but it got corrected. However, the rating of the new one is still a medium. It’s not bad but also not standing out. Expecting better quality of the meat with this price too, what they served was two thin slices of beef instead of one good piece of meat.

Among all those dishes we had, the calamari is the best, and ironically the roasted chickpea ice cream from the house is the 2nd. Overall, we think the food part have quite some improvement room considering the...

So it was our last night in Alacati and we thought we’ll go all out and give Fava a try, surely it can’t be worse than our experience at Karina Alacati the night before. Let me tell you this, WE WERE NOT DISAPPOINTED! We had a dip, 2 entrees, one pasta and one main and 2 bottles of water and the total bill came to... 239TL, 30TL CHEAPER than Karina 😱😱😱 aaaaaand much much much better food and ambience and garden. We ordered the Fava bean dip and it was nice and plain, perfect for our toddler. Even the bread rolls served were nice and warm and fresh. Entree was prawn spring rolls and grilled squid (attached) the food was fresh and the flavours were great, I love the sweet sour chilli sauce that came with the spring rolls. Then we had the prawn tagliatelle, the prawns were small, more like shrimp size but still tasted good and deveined. Pasta flavours were pretty good and main course was grilled fish, filleted. The fish did not disappoint, fresh and sweet and melts in your mouth, skin was nice and crispy, nothing compared to what we had at Karina Alacati. I have to be honest, the portions were smaller than what we’re used to but the flavours, freshness and taste of the food is so much better, weighing all that up, it’s not worth paying the money for subpar food at Karina Alacati and walk away feeling sick and disappointed. Another bonus of Fava is that they are family friendly and have clean-ish baby high chairs perfect for our two kids. This is one place we will definitely return! I know I have raved on about Fava but it is only because of my severely disappointing experience at Karina Alacati. I can assure you that this is an independent review that is not paid or...

We were really looking forward to this place — it came highly recommended by our hotel in Alaçatı and had amazing reviews. The setting is beautiful, peaceful, and far from the hectic evening crowds, which we truly appreciated. The food was great too — my friend and I shared some mezzes and hot dishes, perfect for what was meant to be a chill dinner between two friends catching up after a long time apart.

But unfortunately, one major thing ruined the experience: the service.

Our waiter, Mustafa, was very warm and welcoming at first — we genuinely appreciated that. But then things got awkward. He kept pushing us to order more food even when we clearly said we wouldn’t be able to finish it. Throughout the meal, he interrupted us every 10 minutes to talk, which really disrupted our evening. What was meant to be a relaxing catch-up turned into a frustrating dinner.

To top it off, when the bill came, he pointed out that there was no service fee (even though it was already included), and insisted we leave a big tip, claiming it was for "taxes" and other nonsense that didn’t concern us. It also didn’t go unnoticed that he wasn’t doing this with local customers.

Having lived in Turkey for years, I can also say that the value for money here just isn’t great — the prices are excessive for what you get (We paid over 200€ for two people)

Beautiful place, good food — but the service completely...