Where to stay

Prices quoted are per night for a double room.

Beyond Modern boutique hotel in downtown Izmir, slick but private and designed in soothing chakra colours. Ottoman bed heads and retro-pop décor. Doubles from £100. 00 90 232 463 0585, http://hotelbeyond.com

Imren Han Panoramic views of Çesme at this hilltop inn on the edge of Alaçati. The rooms are smallish but feminine and romantic. Doubles from £90. 00 90 232 716 6002, http://alacatiimrenhanbutikote...

O EV Tucked away in an Alaçati alley, this old merchant’s house has been converted into a welcoming boutique hotel. There’s a mastic tree in the garden by the pool and rooms, although not luxurious, aren’t over-egged. Doubles from £90. 00 90 232 716 6150, http://o-ev.com

Sisus Hotel Small atrium-style hotel with brightly coloured furnishings set against a white backdrop. Rooms and suite with Jacuzzi bathtubs overlook a pretty fishing port. It’s quiet and relaxing. Shuttle to beaches. Doubles from £100. 00 90 232 724 0330, http://sisushotel.com

Swissôtel Grand Efes Five star in the grand tradition, next door to the international conference centre, but it’s also an art hotel, with a spa and great rooftop bar overlooking the bay. The Aquarius restaurant backing onto the pool is expensive but reliable. Doubles from £96. 00 90 232 414 0000, http://swissotel.com

The Zeytin Konak In Alacati, this is a charming converted stone house run by husband and wife, Ertugrul and Ilknur. Breakfast is a highlight and comes complete with locally grown fruit and home-made jams. Doubles from £110. 00 90 232 716 8081, http://alacatizeytinotel.com

Travel Information

Izmir enjoys a Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Temperatures peak in July and August, with average highs of 32°C. Either side of this, from late April-June and Sept-early November, expect plenty of sunshine, typically between nine and 13 hours a day, with the odd shower. December is the wettest month.

GETTING THERE
Easyjet (http://easyjet.co.uk) has direct flights from London Gatwick on Tuesdays and Saturdays, from May through to November.
Pegasus (http://flypgs.com) offers direct flights from London Stansted: four flights weekly, May through to October.
Turkish Airlines (http://thy.com) flies daily to Izmir via Istanbul Ataturk.
Atlasjet (http://atlasjet.com) also flies daily to Izmir via Istanbul Ataturk.

RESOURCES
UK and Ireland Turkish Culture and Tourism office (http://gototurkey.co.uk) has practical information, events listings and brochures available for download when planning your trip to Izmir.
Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism operates a global information portal (http://goturkey.com), which is another useful source in booking flights and hotels, and trip planning.
Eat in Izmir (http://eatinizmir.com) is an indispensible local restaurant review website featuring some good tips and 1,400 recommendations.

FURTHER READING
The Western Shores of Turkey by John Freely (Tauris Parke Paperbacks, £13.99) is part travelogue, part guide book, giving a colourful introduction to the fascinating history of the region as a whole. Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières (Vintage, £8.99) tells the story of an Aegean village, its inhabitants and the impacts of the First World War, dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish-Greek population exchange of the 1920s.

Where to eat

Prices from the most expensive restaurant to the cheapest don’t vary all that much. Expect to pay from £1.50-£3.50 for each mezze. Main courses don’t often top the £15 mark and desserts are cheaper still.

Begendik Abi Slow food at its best in a pretty village square. Camiatik Mh, Tatarcamii Sk 12, Malgaca Pazari, Urla, 00 90 232 754 2071, http://begendikabi.com

Dalyan Fish, fresh off the boats served at quayside tables. Liman Caddesi 161, Çesme, 00 90 232 724 7045, http://dalyanrestaurant.com

Deniz The best of all the fish restaurants on the Kordon. Atatürk Caddessi 188, Alsançak, 00 90 232 464 4499, http://denizrestaurant.com.tr

Floryali Güzelbahçe Here you char-roast your own meat. Really good fun. Between the seafront and the coastal road, Maltepe Mah. Mithat Pasa Caddessi 19, Güzelbahçe, Izmir, 00 90 232 234 0075

Izmir Konagi Old fashioned but interesting Turkish cuisine skilfully prepared. Opposite the Economics University. Sakarya Caddesi 131 Merkez Balçova, 00 90 232 278 6688

La Cigale Part of a very popular restaurant complex at the Levent Marina. Haydar Aliyev Bulvarı 4/A Üçkuyular, 00 90 232 259 0090, http://lacigalemarina.com/tr

Pepe Rosso Nice spot for an early morning feast. Atatürk Caddessi. 202/B, Alsançak, 00 90 232 464 9663, http://peperosso.com

Sakiz This unpretentious bistro dishes up some exquisite dishes. Opposite the Swissôtel, Sehit Nevresbey Bulvarı 9/A Swissôtel Grand Efes Izmir Convention Centre karsısı, Alsançak, http://sakizalcancak.com

Tavaci Recep Usta For classy kebabs, Atatürk Caddessi. 364, Alsançak, 00 90 232 463 8797, http://tavacirecepusta.com/mek...

Topçu Part of a small brasserie group that has some of the best lunchtime mezze and impressive kebab selections. 3/B Pasaport, 00 90 232 484 6261, http://topcununyeri.com

Food Glossary

Asure

A rich grain and dried fruit pudding

Ayran

A refreshing yoghurt drink

Badem

Almonds

Baçanga

Stuffed fried pancake

Balik

Generic name for fish

Biber pepper

Hot dried pepper

Börek

Patty

Boyoz

Flaky pastry of Jewish origin

Çay

Tea

Çipura

Silver gilt bream

Deniz börülcesı

Samphire

Dolma

‘Stuffed'

Enginar

Artichoke

Erik

Hard green sour plum

Gevrek

Quoit-shaped roll with sesame

Helva

Halva

Kadaif

Shredded-wheat-like pastry

Kasar

Hard cheese

Karavida

Squat lobster

Kebab

Any skewered meat or fish

Kaymak

Clotted cream

Köfte

Rissole

Kumyon

Cumin, used to season meat

Kumru

A toasted Izmiri sandwich

Kurabiyesi

Shortbread biscuit

Lavas

Puffed-up flatbread

Lokma

Mini doughnuts in syrup

Lor

Soft, fresh cheese

Muammara

Pepper, walnut and chilli paste (served as mezze)

Midye

Mussels

Patlıcan

Aubergine

Peynir

Generic name for cheese

Raki

Cloudy aniseed alcoholic drink of the Pernod family

Salatasi

Salad

Zeytin

Olive

Food and Travel Review

Cross Izmir Bay from Karsiyaka to Konak in the lemonade weather of a summer afternoon. The ferry is packed. A hawker selling orange juice forces his way through the aisles. At the stern, gulls dip and dive for scraps of crunchy gevrek bread tossed by passengers. Uniform apartment blocks line the coast. Behind them a city of four-and-a-half million resides in the hills.

The modern city lies on the ashes of old Smyrna – literally. A great fire gutted it in 1922. Since then it has reinvented itself: Mediterranean, prosperous and young. It chooses the past it clings to with care. A legend that Smyrnians relocated here after Alexander the Great was told by goddesses in a dream that the inhabitants would be ‘four times blessed’ appeals to them. So does the myth that Amazons, warrior women who killed men for thrills, founded it, a nice contrast with the justified reputation for female beauty.

Racially, it’s a melting pot. Turks, Greeks, Jews and even Tartars have all left their mark. True to its Levantine roots, it remains a place for fixing and doing deals. Those who are good at it spend weekends at their beach houses in the satellite region of Çesme. The very richest moor their yachts there in front of Marrakech Beach Club.

This cross-fertilising mish-mash throws up surprises. A top gynaecologist owns arguably the best bistro in town, Sakiz, next door to Burger King. The slickest winery at Urla just out of town is the property of a multi-millionaire palm tree grower. An ex-Coca- Cola executive markets the Economics University’s Department of Culinary Arts where Gabriele Sponzo trains Turkey’s future chefs. Beside Deniz where toffs eat and quaff raki, a man on a bike sells mussels stuffed with rice for the equivalent of seven pence apiece.

He’s just one among dozens plying their wares on the Kordon, a very Turkish take on the promenade. It stretches along the length of Alsançak, the downtown quarter. A carpet of chewed melon seeds litters the ground around every bench. Carts of erik, sour Granny-Smith-coloured plums, sell out in minutes. A double-decker opentopped tea bus acts as a mobile samovar. There’s a cry of ‘buzlu badem’ (iced almonds); shelled, raw and moreish.

A banner across an alley running off the main drag advertises ‘sokana hayat var’ – translated as ‘there’s life in the street’. And it’s very true. Eating, drinking and people-watching happen outdoors and in full view. Sit under the awnings of a Kibris Sehitleri Street café with a glass of the local Efes beer and they puff out a cooling spray every minute to help it go down.

Kahvalti, breakfast, is alfresco too, a sesame-coated bread quoit, flaky boyoz (brought to Izmir by immigrant Jews in the 16th century), or fresh fruit. At Pepe Rosso a couple of brasseries down from Deniz, Pepe Rosso dishes up clotted cream (kaymak) and runny honey, soft cheese (lor) with mulberry compote and stuffed, cigar-shaped pastries. Turkish coffee thick and caffeine-rich, ‘black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love’ comes at the end of the meal.

Eating ‘out’ day or night is what they do most of the year, bar the short, colder winter months. Like its citizens the cooking is hybrid. One set of mezze looks just like the next. Kebabs, köfte (rissoles) and balik (grilled fish) soon become familiar. On the table, salt and pepper aside, there are hot paprika, powdered cumin and maybe dried herbs. Ingredients are almost always fresh. What sets one dish apart from the other though is detail: the sweet and sour pomegranate
sauce used to dress a salad, the subtle addition of walnuts and bulgur to ıçlı köfte (meatballs fried in a brittle semolina shell) or the lightly smoked aubergine disguised in a strained yoghurt dip.

At Sakiz, in the shadow of the five-star Swissôtel Grand Efes, börek patties conceal a tiny shrimp and wild greens filling. Sakiz (mastic) flavours one sea bass sauce, milk and blessed thistle (like cardoon) another. The freshest radish tops are dished up as a mezze and the salads are purslane (a herb), mallow and samphire. Hot red chilli oil flakes float on a lor and walnut sea.

From the coast road out of the centre, next to a stainless steel chimney six metres high, Florayali might pass as a factory. Three butchers and three chefs here cut up enough sheep and chickens to feed maybe 700 people each day. As a concept it’s simple: the customer does most of work. A giant refrigerated counter displays every imaginable cut of lamb from testes to chops, sucuk (sausage) or chicken. You choose, toy with a few mezze till your cuts arrive, and then you roast your meat to taste in a charcoal-fired oven at the table. Ventilation sucks any smoke out under the floor, up through the chimney and up into the atmosphere.

Compared to Izmir’s buzz, Urla, just outside the urban ring, seems a quaint reminder of a vanished Ottoman way of life. The barber in a cubbyhole shaves a stubbly chin. The baker feeds his bread into the oven and sells it from his shop window. Flat-capped ancients play tavli outside the café. The picture doesn’t lie, but only tells part of the truth; the village at the centre of the eponymous district is flourishing.

Urla hosts two remarkable, but very different, women. Handan Kaysguzzer is cook patron of Begendik Abi. Her mission, she says, is to protect dishes which her mother and grandmother used to make from vanishing. This involves working with farmers and foragers who bring her the freshest produce. There’s a tradition, owing much to the Cretan Turks who settled here, of cooking with wild herbs: ‘Look in my kitchen at night,’ she says, ‘and you won’t find any, because the villagers bring them to me first thing in the morning.’

Her recipes take time: ‘When I make my artichokes stuffed with rice I wait until I hear the fire and then I simmer them for 30 minutes.’ To prepare a pink poppy flower cordial, she infuses the petals for weeks. Shoulder of baby kid (oglak) simmers in a pot until it’s ready to simply fall off the bone. The goat may well have come from her friend, Pelin Omuroglu Balcioglu’s farm. Sent to study in California, she majored in organic farming and returned to Turkey to produce olive oil: ‘We want to be more delicate to the environment and more responsible to the earth.’ Starting with a pocket handkerchief of land, she now owns a 250-hectare estate helped by a flock of goats that provide manure for her trees as well as milk and cheese. In winter, she also harvests the hurma olives which are unique to the peninsula. Left on the branch, they ripen naturally and can be eaten without curing.

Her neighbour Can Ortabas’ Urla Winery produces biodynamic wines. The old adage that it takes a big fortune to make a small one crushing grapes is as true here as anywhere. Its owner set it up on the back of a business growing palms and cypresses for landscaping, the largest in Turkey, probably in the Med. Low-slung, elegant it looks like Knossos out of Napa Valley. Surrounding vineyards, less than ten-years-old, grow a patchwork of French, Italian and indigenous varieties such as bogazkere and bornova Misketi. Five of these are blended to produce Tempus, an eastern version of the Southern Rhône’s famous Châteauneuf du Pape.

High-ranking civil servants and politicians aspire to retire to Urla. Beyond it, poking a stubby finger at the Greek island of Chios is Çesme. Purchasing property here can require more than a gilded state pension, but it absorbs without fuss the influx of Izmiris who flow in throughout summer and at weekends. Sand-fringed beaches and limpid water sculpt the peninsula.

At Alaçati, locals tuck in to their favourite kumru sandwich: diamond-shaped, sesame-seeded bread toasted like a hamburger bun is packed with sucuk, grilled cheese and tomato and served hot accompanied by a plate of pickled chillies and gherkins.

In an overfished Aegean many of the balik restaurants rely on farmed or frozen fish. This isn’t the case for Dalyan. It stands alone in a small harbour where a fisherman’s cooperative lands and auctions its catch every morning at 10am. They weigh the fish on a stainless-steel tray the size of a billiard table – grouper, red mullet, a few squat lobsters and scorpion fish. Anyone is free to simply turn up and bid. A prized silver gilt bream can fetch upward of 50 lira (£20).

Scraping, filleting and gutting on the boats, some of the crewmen still speak Cretan dialect. In the aftermath of the First World War Greeks and Turks fought over Anatolia and the Ionian islands. After three years they agreed terms. Greece kept all the islands and Turkey the mainland. There was a population exchange. Turkish communities on Crete and in Salonika moved east and their Greek counterparts headed west. That enmity has dissipated – at least in Çesme where an Orthodox church and mosque share the same building and a daily ferry links the mainland to Chios.

In Çesme Çarsı, at Rumeli’s ice cream parlour, they queue for sakiz (mastic), mulberry, sesame seed or pistachio ice cream cornets. Rumeli imports sakiz from Chios and also sells the sticky, sweet paste as jam. It’s what gives Turkish Delight its springy texture.

Of the sweet and sticky puddings and pastries, Begendik Abi’s asure, a near-Eastern frumenty – a granola mix of sixteen grains and dried fruit – takes some beating. But then fried lokma balls run it close. And there was a layered monument of roasted pumpkin, walnuts and figs sandwiching clotted cream and, almost forgot to mention it, a baked halva and tahini pudding. And a brasserie called Topçu does a hot kadaif disc stuffed with cheese and pistachios. In Izmir, chances are that if the food is great, somewhere there’s a woman watching over it. The Amazonian sisterhood has swapped its bows and quivers for aprons.

Don’t miss

Rumeli Pastanesi in Çesme bazaar for some of the best ice cream you’ll ever eat, roughly 60p per scoop. http://rumelipastanesi.com

Ayerya Organic Café A few doors away from Begendik Abi in Urla. An incredibly chic hideaway in this out-of-the-way village. Highlights include the goats’ milk ice cream and olives. 00 90 232 754 4526

Marrakech Beach Club Aya Yorgi, Çesme. Beach-club bar where Izmiri glitterati hang out. 00 90 232 712 0403, http://marrakechonthebeach.com

Kumrucu Sevki in Çesme is the go-to place for Kumru, the famed cheese sandwich. 00 90 232 723 0093, with branches in Karsiyaka and Ilica too.