Twenty years ago, the building that now houses Cercis Murat Konağı was a neglected old mansion sliding into dereliction in Mardin, a historic city in southeastern Turkey. Today, it is by many accounts the city’s most famous restaurant, with floor-to-ceiling windows that frame a panoramic view of Mardin’s honey-colored rooftops and the patchwork fields of the Mesopotamian plain far below. In clear weather, you can even peer deep into neighboring Syria.
One morning in December 2018, Ebru Baybara Demir, the restaurant’s chef and owner, sat at a table in the dining room wearing a chef’s apron fixed with a Turkish star-and-crescent lapel. “Hos geldiniz [welcome]!