Mehmet Gürs: the chef behind Mikla and the New Anatolian Kitchen
Mehmet Gürs is the chef and restaurateur behind Mikla, on the top floors of The Marmara Pera hotel in Beyoğlu, Istanbul. Mikla opened in 2005, Culture Trip calls it his best-known restaurant and an early step towards contemporary cooking in the city, and it holds a Michelin star in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide Türkiye.
What makes him matter beyond one dining room is an idea. Mikla introduced what it calls New Anatolian cuisine in 2012 (Mikla): a way of cooking that takes Turkish ingredients and techniques seriously, built on years of research in villages across Anatolia.
Early life and career
Between Scandinavia and Istanbul
Gürs was born on 13 December 1969 in Ekenäs, Finland (Wikipedia). According to an Anadolu Agency profile published by Hürriyet Daily News, he grew up mostly in Scandinavia, had a brief first job in a Stockholm restaurant at 13, and moved to Istanbul in 1985, at 15.
Training in the United States
From 1990 he studied hotel, restaurant and institutional management at Johnson & Wales University in the US, then worked as a chef in New York and Boston. He returned to Istanbul in 1996 and opened Downtown, a 40-seat restaurant in Nişantaşı. In 2001 he presented his own TV show on NTV and published a cookbook, Downtown.
Restaurants
Mikla, Beyoğlu, Istanbul
Mikla sits on the top two floors of The Marmara Pera, with views over the historic peninsula, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus (FTN News). Michelin lists it as Mediterranean and modern cuisine, describes it as a “New Anatolian Kitchen” and notes a vegan set menu alongside the main one. In 2013 Gürs overhauled the menu, dropping goose liver and caviar in favour of local anchovies, cracked wheat and dried apricots (Hürriyet Daily News).
Istanbul Food & Beverage Group
Gürs runs a wider group of businesses. Wikipedia lists numnum café and restaurant, Trattoria Enzo, the speciality coffee roaster Kronotrop, the Terra Kitchen chain and a research kitchen called The Workshop, alongside Mikla. His earlier restaurants included Downtown and Lokanta. In 2015 he told Anadolu Agency he was overseeing more than 15 restaurants from an office in Maslak.
Cooking style and signature dishes
Gürs describes himself as an “analytical engineer” when it comes to cooking, and the research behind Mikla’s menu is methodical. It began around 2009 with a team that included the food anthropologist Tangor Tan, who had worked with Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini. By 2015 Gürs reckoned they had visited almost 400 villages, stayed in a couple of hundred homes, tasted about 950 cheeses and driven roughly 110,000 km (Hürriyet Daily News).
On the plate that means dishes such as fried hamsi (Black Sea anchovies) and smoked lamb loin with charred endive and apple molasses (World’s 50 Best Discovery). Michelin notes a distinctive Nordic purity in the flavours and dishes presented with minimal fuss – a fair nod to his Scandinavian upbringing.
Awards and recognition
- Michelin: Mikla received one Michelin star in the first Istanbul selection, announced in October 2022 (Michelin Guide), and holds one star in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide Türkiye.
- The World’s 50 Best Restaurants: Mikla was ranked No. 51 on the 51–100 list in 2017 (FTN News).
- Time Out Istanbul awards: Best Restaurant for Downtown (2001), Best Chef (2003) and Best Restaurant for Mikla (2006), according to Wikipedia.
Books, TV and online
His first cookbook, Downtown, and his NTV television show both date from 2001. More recently he has appeared in an interview series on olive oil and plant-forward cooking from the Culinary Institute of America.
Watch
Gürs talks about olive oil and Anatolian produce in this interview with the Culinary Institute of America.
Where to eat food like this in London
For modern Turkish cooking in a smarter setting, browse our meze and fine dining listings, or our Turkish seafood restaurants if anchovies and grilled fish are what you are after. For a special night out, see our guide to romantic Turkish restaurants in London. At home, try our kısır (bulgur wheat salad) or a proper Turkish coffee.
- HAZ Bishopsgate – Turkish meze & fine dining in City of London
- Gezi Park – Turkish meze & fine dining in Wanstead
- Mangal 2 – Turkish meze & fine dining in Dalston & Stoke Newington
- Cilicia – Turkish meze & fine dining in Muswell Hill
- Kebapçı İskender – Turkish kebab & döner in Knightsbridge
- Leydi – Turkish meze & fine dining in City of London
See all 95 Meze & Fine Dining places in London
Quick facts
- Born: 13 December 1969, Ekenäs, Finland
- Based in: Istanbul
- Trained: Johnson & Wales University, USA
- Known for: Mikla and the New Anatolian Kitchen
- Michelin: one star for Mikla (2026 guide)
Further reading
- Mikla – MICHELIN Guide
- Renowned chef innovates Turkish cuisine with tradition – Hürriyet Daily News
- Mehmet Gürs – Wikipedia
- Mikla enters the World’s Best Restaurants list – FTN News
- Istanbul’s top celebrity chefs – Culture Trip
Pictured: kısır. Photo: Noumenon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
