Tavacı Recep Usta Alsancak - İzmir

The food was of excellent quality while also being very authentic. The servers gave great service while also suggesting superb recommendations from the menu. I recommend the slow cooked lamb shank with rice. The lamb was tender and juicy while the rice was flavorful and moist.

Tavacı Recep Usta is the best restaurant in İzmir Alsancak. The service is outstanding and the food is incredibly delicious. We ordered kaburga dolma with bulgur, saç tava, and lahmacun. The rest — salads, coffee, tea, and dessert — are all included with the meal. A big thank-you to our waiter Beytullah, who served us perfectly and showed us great respect. Highly recommended!

I had a great experience overall. The Stuffed Rib (Kaburga Dolma) was excellent, tender, and full of flavor. The only downside was the bulgur pilaf, which was a bit too oily for my taste. On the plus side, the Çiğ Köfte and İçli Köfte were both outstanding, and the stuffed eggplant with meat was absolutely phenomenal. Definitely worth visiting for the main dishes.

Beautiful food and the warmest Turkish hospitality! The lamb was unforgettable, so tender it melts in your mouth. The restaurant has such a lovely vibe, especially around golden hour. We walked in on a Sunday evening without a reservation and were seated with no problem. Just a heads up, the menu doesn’t show prices. P.S.: The picture shows Recep Usta Sarma Kebab, which also extremly savory

Our Ankara favourite has an İzmir branch that didn’t disappoint-first time bringing foreigners, and it nailed it. Taste, plating, speed-all spot on, just like home base. Tava was unreal. Thanks so much, we’ll be back.

Really enjoyed having dinner here’s superb service, top quality food, cosy dining vibe and decent deco on the wall. Truly michelle star restaurant!

Although I don’t like the taste of the “kuyruk yağı”( smelly animal fat) they use for multiple menu options including their complimentary eggplant dolma and içli köfte, they absolutely deserve to be Michelin star restaurant! Thanks for great experience!

Definitely the best restaurant I’ve been so far in Izmir. The one, that makes you think: why should I dine somewhere else? The food is excellent! Although some members of the staff speak only Turkish, the are always very kind and are supported by their colleagues. Unfortunately this time I forgot to make the picture of the food, but I can assure you that it was worth coming in.

Good food overall, lots of complimentary items brought to the table without us knowing which we appreciated but I could see this being a problem for people with food allergies. The soup was tasty and the spicy Adana kebab was really tasty, cooked on coal.

Food was great, service was exceptional. We loved it, and it is our go to place each time we are in Izmir

If you're visiting Izmir you must try this place. The food is excellent, the staff is friendly, and you get free mezzes and desert that are substantial!!!

Good meat dishes. Mildly pricey but worth it if you want the best. I enjoyed the şaşlik. The dessert was nice as well. I would recommend going here and then enjoying a seaside walk.

This was our last meal in Turkey and I have to say it was our best Turkish meal on our 10 day trip. Everything we ordered was good and the services was top notch. The food came out a little too quickly, felt the need to eat really fast. Other then that the restaurant is well design with a lovely ambiance. Highly recommend anyone visiting Izmir to check it out. The meal was also very affordable.

One of the best restaurants in İzmir. Top-notch location, ambiance, food, and service. All main courses come with a procession of sides: appetizers like their içli köfte (little wrapped meatballs), warm poofy bread, better salad than anywhere else in town, ice-cream-and-pie dessert, and of course çay (tea) or coffee (often including the option of a regional coffee). The two-person lamb-and-rice dinner is particularly well-executed. The seaside location can't be beat in İzmir. After-dinner strolls down the waterfront Kordon are lovely. The restaurant is beautiful inside, too: hanging lanterns, soft light (so rare in this town), with the outside a garden and the inside a (rare-for-İzmir) old house. No intrusive music.

Right on Alsancak's waterfront. Dinner came with complementary spinach salad, poofy bread, stuffed eggplant, and at the end of our meal, complimentary Turkish desserts. The main course was very good - the lamb had been recommended to us by a friend. It was perfectly tender and flavorful. We ate outdoors where the atmosphere was warm and inviting, strung with lanterns. A glass of wine was 15 tl, most entrees were about 30 - 80 TL. Reservations recommended. Worth the visit, even for yabancilar (foreigners) like us.