Osman Sezener: the İzmir chef behind Michelin-starred OD Urla and Kitchen
Osman Sezener is the İzmir chef who did much to put the Aegean coast on Turkey’s fine-dining map. His farm restaurant, OD Urla, sits in a family olive grove outside the town of Urla, cooks over wood and charcoal, and grows a large share of what it serves. It holds a MICHELIN star and a MICHELIN Green Star for sustainable gastronomy, and his second restaurant, Kitchen in Bodrum, also holds a star, according to the MICHELIN Guide.
He matters for Turkish food because he treats Aegean produce as the point rather than the garnish: Urla’s blue-tailed shrimp and mastic (sakız) artichokes, Ödemiş potatoes and fish from the bays around Bodrum (MICHELIN Guide). In 2026 he took those flavours abroad, cooking a Turkish tasting menu in Monaco.
Early life and career
A childhood in the family restaurant
Sezener was born in İzmir in 1982 (NTV) and grew up in Ristorante Pizzeria Venedik, the Italian restaurant his father, Ahmet Günter Sezener, founded in the city more than 40 years ago. The MICHELIN Guide credits the family restaurant with much of his grounding in the trade.
Training and work abroad
After İzmir American High School, he studied tourism and hotel management at Bilkent University in Ankara, then trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York. He worked in restaurant kitchens in the United States, Italy and Istanbul (NTV) before returning home to İzmir to build restaurants of his own.
Restaurants
OD Urla, Urla (İzmir)
OD Urla opened in 2018 in a family-owned olive grove; the restaurant’s website also covers its farm, wine cellar and guesthouse. Its name comes from the old Turkish word for fire, and cooking happens over wood and charcoal in an open kitchen (Wikipedia) inside a hilltop glasshouse. The MICHELIN Guide says the restaurant grows around half its ingredients, buys the rest from suppliers within roughly 10km and follows a zero-waste approach. There are vegetarian and non-vegetarian set menus, guest rooms for an overnight stay, and dishes such as grouper aged for a week and served with a beurre blanc enriched with clam juices.
Kitchen, Bodrum
Kitchen opened in 2021 inside The Bodrum Edition hotel at Yalıkavak, looking out over the bay. A MICHELIN Guide feature describes a short, seafood-led menu: Bodrum sea bream, Ildır calamari, Bargilya blue-tailed prawns and Aegean grouper, often with citrus sauces, along with mantı (Turkish dumplings) filled with Divle obruk cheese and served with pear. There is a tasting menu, “The Journey of the Chef”, plus vegetarian and vegan options, and for every cocktail ordered at the bar an olive sapling is donated to local farmers.
Ristorante Pizzeria Venedik, İzmir
The family’s Italian restaurant in İzmir’s Konak district (Daily Sabah) is where it all began. It blends Italian and Turkish cooking, with pizzas, ravioli and a Turkish-style “alla turca” pizza, and its shrimp-stuffed ravioli replaced an earlier shrimp-filled “al dente mantı”. It was listed as a recommended restaurant when the MICHELIN Guide first covered İzmir.
Cooking style and signature dishes
Sezener’s cooking follows farm-to-table and zero-waste principles: the menus follow the seasons and the farm, and fire does much of the work. Michelin describes the food at OD Urla as simple and rustic but full of flavour, and Aegean seafood is a constant, often paired with citrus sauces at Kitchen. Turkish ideas run through the food too, from the cheese-filled mantı at Kitchen to the aubergine beğendi (smoky aubergine purée, best known from hünkâr beğendi) he served in Monaco.
That approach travelled to Monaco in August 2026, when he took over the kitchen at Robuchon Monaco for two nights. Monaco Life reported that he brought his own team and around 50 to 60kg of Turkish ingredients, serving an eight-course menu that included tuna with Uşak tahini and caviar, octopus with Aegean mastic and olive, and wagyu with aubergine beğendi and mesir paste, a spiced sweet paste from Manisa.
Awards and recognition
- MICHELIN Guide Istanbul, İzmir & Bodrum 2024 (announced in 2023, the guide’s first selection for İzmir and Bodrum): one star and a Green Star for OD Urla, one star for Kitchen, and a recommendation for Venedik.
- MICHELIN Guide 2025 (announced December 2024): OD Urla and Kitchen both kept their stars.
- MICHELIN Guide Türkiye 2026 (announced December 2025): OD Urla holds one star and a Green Star; Kitchen holds one star.
Books, TV and online
Sezener appeared as a guest chef on MasterChef All Star, the Turkish MasterChef spin-off, in December 2023, as NTV reported. OD Urla’s own website has a section about him and details of the farm, guesthouse and wine cellar.
Where to eat food like this in London
London has no Aegean farm restaurant, but you can find modern Turkish plates in our meze and fine dining listings and fish cooked simply over charcoal in the seafood (balık) restaurants section, with more in our guide to Turkish seafood restaurants in London. At home, try our mantı recipe, levrek buğulama or midye dolma (stuffed mussels), all of which share his love of the Aegean.
- Mangal Meze – Turkish meze & fine dining in Romford
- Izgara Finchley – Turkish meze & fine dining in Finchley
- Fora City – Turkish meze & fine dining in City of London
- Kirvem – Turkish meze & fine dining in London
- Beyzade Turkish Kitchen – Turkish meze & fine dining in Putney
- Gallipoli – Turkish meze & fine dining in Islington & Angel
See all 95 Meze & Fine Dining places in London
Quick facts
- Born: 1982, İzmir, Turkey
- Trained: Bilkent University (tourism and hotel management); French Culinary Institute, New York
- Restaurants: OD Urla (Urla, opened 2018) and Kitchen (Bodrum, opened 2021); family restaurant Ristorante Pizzeria Venedik (İzmir)
- MICHELIN Guide Türkiye 2026: one star each for OD Urla and Kitchen; Green Star for OD Urla
- Known for: farm-to-table, wood-fired modern Aegean cooking
Further reading
- MICHELIN Guide: Osman Sezener, one chef, three establishments
- MICHELIN Guide: OD Urla
- MICHELIN Guide: Kitchen, Bodrum
- Wikipedia: OD Urla
- Monaco Life: Osman Sezener’s Robuchon Monaco takeover
Pictured: hünkar beğendi. Photo: E4024, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
