About Us

Our brand name comes from a wooden structure called “nalia” in the Black Sea Region. Nalia which is built to protect and dry harvested corn (also called “serender”) is one of the most important figures in the traditional architecture and culinary culture of the Black Sea Region.

Our cuisine resists to and overcome all challenges in agriculture and animal husbandry due to the harsh geography of the region and continues its transhumance culture as well as micro-agriculture and still makes butter, cheese and fried meat in the traditional way and the foods in this cuisine all have their unique tastes.

We, as two siblings, set our journey by creating Nalia Karadeniz Mutfağı in 2006 representing the Black Sea cuisine to improve and promote our healthy culinary culture which has been developed in difficult conditions, to establish it as a brand and to contribute to our region.

Today, we represent our regional cuisine with 1 restaurant on the European and 2 restaurants on the Asian side of Istanbul.

Since we opened our first restaurant;

• Our principle has been to do the right and the good thing for the people, for the society and for life.
• We value corporate culture and sustainability of this culture.
• Our goal has been to produce healthy products that are part of our culinary culture.
• We have been using traditional recipes from the region making only small changes.
• Supplying all main and essential ingredients for our kitchen from the region has always been our priority.
• We always use natural rock salt crystals, plain butter and the marrowed bone broth and other organic products in our meals to make our cuisine healthier.
• We continue to work towards our goal to contribute to our country’s economy. We thank you for your support and encouragement to allow us to reach our goals and targets.

As you already know gastronomy is a science that systematically studies connection between food, tradition and culture of a certain region or area. However today with the culinology program which is a blend of culinary art, food technology and science, education models such as microbiology nutrition principles, biochemistry and food products development and processing have been developed. We have to accept that we should be using these new science disciplines when human health is under serious threat with changing eating habits.

We are well aware of our responsibility in this.

Our region, despite some beliefs, has a healthy and comprehensive culinary culture. Readdressing our micro-scale agriculture dynamics in which fruits, vegetables and plants are in danger of disappearing is important to develop and maintain our culinary culture.

We, as Nalia Karadeniz Mutfağı, make it our goal to do what is necessary to uncover gastro-economic values of our region, to tell everyone that the region has a healthy and comprehensive culinary culture without resorting to manipulation.

To do this we will need;

– To identify products that compromise our regional cuisine, document them and make them into recipes

-To build production plants to process products of micro-agriculture to achieve value added products in order to have a sustainable regional culinary culture

-We will need qualified man power in the kitchen and in the service in the food and beverage and hospitality industry in our region which will become one of touristic hotspots in Turkey; to develop curriculums and courses which should be available in the short term, to build schools that runs certification programs in accordance with the regulations of the ministry of education

-After the above mentioned infrastructure problems are solved, our dream and our goal is to build an R&D center which will conduct scientific studies to demonstrate our healthy cuisine that will integrate endemic and other types of plants of the region into gastronomy.

Süleyman Tarakçı – Erol Emirhan Tarakçı