Chef Ulaş Durmaz's North Aegean seafood room at Avantgarde Refined, MICHELIN Guide 2025 and Gault&Millau Modern Cuisine 2025.
The Red Balloon Yalıkavak is the Bodrum edition of Pınar Erdoğan's Beyoğlu original, transplanted into the Avantgarde Refined Yalıkavak hotel with chef Ulaş Durmaz, MICHELIN Türkiye 2024 Young Chef award winner, running the kitchen. The differentiation from the Istanbul Asmalı Mescit room is deliberate: Durmaz's Ayvalık roots come fully forward in a seafront menu that builds on fresh fish and seafood, North Aegean dressing, the season's vegetables sourced from the Ortakent producer hand, and a wine list that leans on Aegean producers without the heavy-name-fine-dining inventory. The MICHELIN Guide 2025 picked the Yalıkavak room up alongside the Istanbul original, Gault&Millau placed it in the Modern Cuisine register the same season, and the Avantgarde hotel itself sits on the MICHELIN Guide hotel listing. The result is a chef-led room with a proper North Aegean point of view rather than the brand-driven destination grammar that defines most of the Yalıkavak headline list.
Chef Durmaz's North Aegean lens is the room's argument, order off the seafood card rather than the meat-side, the seasonal vegetable plates carry the Ayvalık inflection more clearly than the headline mains. Avantgarde Refined hotel guests get the seven-thirty seating priority; the nine-o'clock window opens to non-guests with a fortnight's notice in August.
At a Glance
View Type
Aegean Sea Panoramic, Bay View
View Quality
Sunset
**** (4/5)
Awards
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