Özlem's Turkish Table

The Turkish cookbook that teaches you to cook the way Turkish families actually eat. Özlem Warren grew up in Antakya, in southern Turkey near the Syrian border, where the food is rich with spice, pomegranate, and olive oil. She brings that personal connection to every recipe in this Gourmand Award-winning book.

Why Start Here

Many Turkish cookbooks either present the cuisine as restaurant food or try to cover everything at once. Warren does neither. She writes as a home cook who learned from her mother and grandmother, and she organizes the book around the way Turkish meals are built: meze and salads first, then soups, vegetable dishes, meat and poultry, fish, breads, and desserts.

The recipes are genuinely approachable. You will learn to make classics like mercimek corbasi (red lentil soup), imam bayildi (stuffed eggplant braised in olive oil), adana kebab, lahmacun, borek, and baklava. Warren includes helpful notes on sourcing ingredients and suggests substitutions when needed. The instructions are clear and tested, written by someone who has spent years teaching Turkish cooking to people who have never attempted it before.

What sets this book apart is the regional depth. Warren does not just cover Istanbul standards. She draws from the cooking of Antakya, Gaziantep, and the Mediterranean coast, regions that represent some of Turkey’s richest food traditions. The personal stories woven through the recipes give you context for what you are cooking and why it matters.

What to Expect

A beautifully photographed 304-page cookbook with recipes organized by course. The pantry section at the beginning is worth reading before you start cooking, as it covers essential Turkish ingredients like sumac, pomegranate molasses, Aleppo pepper, and Urfa pepper. Most recipes are straightforward enough for weeknight cooking, with some more involved dishes for weekends or special occasions. The book won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Food Heritage of Turkey in 2020.