Zest Hookah Lounge — Restaurant in Göreme

First of all, there are plenty of fake recommendations in Göreme. This is not one of them. Zest was handed over last October according to the owner. Currently it is owned by a Turkish/Russian couple, Hakan and Tattiana. IMHO, they are one of a kind when it comes to hospitality and friendliness. Many of the shops and restaurants in Cappadocia seem already saturated with tourists and do not provide a good service. Zest has big portions for relevantly affordable prices. I believe they are delicious and preparation is fast. They also serve free amuse-bouche during the preparation. Alcohol is also available and is not expensive compared to liquor shops. I can recommend Sac Kebab for a local taste and Zest Burger for less adventurous tourists. They also serve pottery kebab I suppose but I did not taste it. *The most distinctive feature of Zest is they have a wide option of shisha. The owner is very experienced in shisha preparation since he also owns shisha places in Moscow, Russia. They primarily have Russian tobacco and shisha sets but you can also order Turkish or international flavors. I personally recommend Russian patisserie flavors and leave the details to Hakan. They also sometimes have live music (once or twice a week) until the late hours little after midnight. To summarize, this place is a good example of Turkish hospitality and international friendliness. I believe you must give them a chance to impress you to experience real Göreme and support locals. I should say that I have no relation with the owners. They were just extremely caring for me and my girlfriend so that we wanted to share our experience and give true information about this underrated restaurant/pub. Wish Hakan&Tattiana the best. Hope our roads...

For about 2 weeks, our Turkey experience had been nothing less than amazing with the warm Turkish hospitality. However, this was the first place where we felt that hospitality was absent.

I'm confused by the other good reviews here, maybe we were just unlucky? The service could really be improved, and I'm not even asking for much... when we sat down, our plates had knives but were missing forks - the staff attending us told us to get the forks from the other table ourselves and just walked off instead of properly setting up our table :( (it was not that crowded btw).

And when the food came, the staff hurriedly put the food down on the table, on top on my knife that was on the table, leaving the food plate lopsided, and she walked off... I mean.. why would you do that.. and she walked off to resume her conversation with another staff by the way.

So yea there were a couple of other things but they're small so I won't be a Karen and talk about then all, but these 2 examples are perhaps just the simple but more prominent things which really threw us off a good dining experience.

Thanks for the...

We went there two times. The mood is cool, they have shishas and not so expensive beer but we ordered some food and, first time, they mistook the order, bringing a burger instead of a quesadilla. When we told them about the mistake, they seemed to correct it, but the plate never arrived, and they charged for it in the bill. We understood it was a one time mistake and we came back, and we asked again for the quesadillas we didn’t get to taste as a quick bite before getting the transfer to the airport, and once again, after 30 min, we have to remind them (there were just 3 tables dining at the time), and they hadn’t passed the order, so we payed and leave. In addition, women’s bathroom is absolutely disgusting. There are, in our opinion, a lot of better options in Göreme, and we are sorry about this, but we were...