Kemal Demirasal was a surf instructor from whom I took my first lesson 12 years ago. He was an energetic and hilarious young man. Back then none of us thought that he would bring his perfection in surf to a new place; namely the kitchen.
Kemal first started working at the kitchen of his family’s restaurant, later he opened Barbun with his family, offering seafood meals with modern touches. Kemal inevitably became more passionate about cooking delicious tastes. A meal he had at Copenhagen’s famous Noma which had been selected as the world’s best restaurant for many times, changed his life.
Working hard, he made his way into Noma’s kitchen to work there, and captured the secrets of creating extraordinary tastes with various ingredients in this kitchen, the dream of all chef candidates from all over the world. After returning to Turkey, he started offering his own taste discoveries to his followers first in Barbun, later in Alancha, a gourmet chef restaurant he opened in Alaçatı and İstanbul.
Now he presents his talent at Yek Alaçatı which is a refined and new age Aegean restaurant.
With its beautiful decoration, original plates and creative recipes Yek offers not only delicious food but also a philosophy of diet and life; everything from a word said and a sentence on the website or the menu to each outfit, decoration or object you see, the music you listen, anything you smell, presentations on your table and the foods you eat serve to this philosophy. In other words, at Yek you set out for a dreamy journey with all your senses. At Yek, the menu is categorized under 3 concepts: From The Sea, From The Land, From The Street; giving you a hint about the creative approach of Demirasal.
For Kemal, the proudest moment was when the founder of Noma, Claus Meyer came to Alaçatı and heaped praise on this temple of gastronomy created by his student. We definitely recommend you to try his perfect food on the amazing terrace overlooking Alaçatı. It is often said that everything begins with a dream – with applause to this dream that came true…