The Olive and Grape — Restaurant in Seattle

Far from the typical, generic med you see all over the place, this is true Turkish. I lived in Türkiye for two years and this is by far the most authentic Turkish food I’ve had in the US. The owner, Paula, is from Izmir, and she gives an authentic taste of her hometown’s cosmopolitan culinary tradition with Turkish beer and wine, meze, and traditional staples. She was an absolute delight to talk to, and humored my very bad Turkish.

Of course I had to have an Efes Pilsner, because Efes is legitimately a great beer.

Started with some sigara börek with tzatziki as an app. The börek was everything it should be: flaky and starring fresh parsley. There are a million ways to do tzatziki sauce; I like Paula’s style where the cucumber shines through, creating a bright condiment for the salty börek.

The Adana kebab was not as spicy as I was used to in Antalya, but the quality of meat and the medley of spices were fantastic. Turns out, she gets her meat from a special butcher and you can tell. Served with onions, tomato, and arugula for a bitterness that cuts through the rich, fatty lamb just like it should. If you ordered Adana Kebab in Türkiye, you would get something very much like this.

Iskander Döner was the hearty, indulgent mess of flavor it should be. This is the dish we always pine for, and this is one of the few places I’ve seen it offered. In Antalya it would typically have been served with a grilled green pepper to add a bit of heat and smoke to that delicious mess, but I’m content to chalk it up to regional differences.

Meatballs are one of the few things my toddler will eat this week, so we got her some köfte with pasta. Holy cow. I never encountered köfte in pasta like that in Türkiye, but I’d order it for myself. Köfte has lots of onion and garlic worked into it, so my toddler found that a tad spicy, but I was impressed. Even the kids’ menu food is delicious!

Finally we ordered baklava and tea. It isn’t hard to find good baklava, but what stood out to me was the tea, served with the full visual/tactile experience of a Turkish tea glass so you can see the color. The flavor took me back - sure enough, she uses Çaykur Rize çay (turist çay), a common name brand in Türkiye. My daughter picked a tea from their selection of Turkish fruit teas.

Overall, an incredibly delicious experience!...

I saw this place was closing and it reminded me that I won a gift card to the restaurant in a raffle fundraiser for WayOUT Seattle (hosted at Flying Bike Brewery a couple doors down in Dec 2022). My husband just tried to spend the gift card, was told it was fake, that their business would NEVER donate to Flying Bike (it wasn't to them, it was a fundraiser held there), and then called my husband an a--hole when he walked out without the food we had ordered after their outright rudeness.

Edit to address the straight up lie from the business owner, my husband absolutely did mention that the fundraiser was simply held at flying bike and even tried to show you a screenshot of the email I sent to him with the name of the non profit after he called me while in your establishment confused to why you wouldn’t accept the gift card and asked for some proof. You blew him off and wouldn’t even look. If this was a photo copy (on real card stock, didn’t look like a copy to me! It had a signature on it) that was what YOU gave the non profit employee when they came by asking for donations. We are your neighbors, we donated in good faith to a fundraiser held in our shared neighborhood and won a raffle with a gift card you donated. We aren’t some scammers like your treated us. Non profits aren’t in the business of faking raffle prizes, and we certainly didn’t fake it, you seem to have forgotten what your gift cards were like in 2022 and we are caught in the crosshairs.

Oh well, you’ll be closed...

Lovely local restaurant with delicious, fresh, well-plated food and great service. I’m thrilled that we finally ventured in for an evening meal. Of the four of us in our party, we each ordered a different main course. My Alinazik (smoky eggplant and Greek yogurt purée) was topped with the most tender beef. I was excited to try a new dish and was pleased with making a choice of something incredibly delicious. The roasted peppers added the perfect warmth to the dish. My husband ordered the Izmir Style Lamb Shish Kabob. It was perfectly prepared, melting in the mouth like butter. Im not someone who eats lamb and clearly it’s because I’ve not had it served properly prepared. This was delightful! One of our companions ordered the Manti. The dish was beautifully plated and equally tasty. The mint added a delicate finish that was surprisingly tasty. I’m also not a huge mint fan, so this was two do two in breaking old culinary habits! Our fourth companion enjoyed an order of Lamb and Chicken Shish Kabobs that we’re so on point - truly scrumptious. Our friends shared an order of tiramisu and we shared baklava with a side of fig and vanilla gelato. Both were incredibly tasty, so much so that I cannot day one was better because they were equally superb. We will be back, ready to enjoy more...