Genoese-castle harbour district seat west of Alaçatı
Çeşme is the district seat — a Genoese-castle harbour town a short drive west of Alaçatı, broader and more workaday, with the daily ferry to Chios and a working town centre that runs year-round. The chapter accepts a handful of Çeşme rooms that earn it (the seafront Tophane, the proper meyhane row) but treats the rest as the wider peninsula context for the Alaçatı stone-village core.
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The 1975 Dalyan harbour fish house that defines what a Çeşme balık restoranı should taste like
Chef Ahmet Horasan's lemon-tree courtyard — Gault & Millau Türkiye 2024 Best Seafood
Michelin Guide-listed family osteria a few streets from the castle, serving day-boat fish and meze without the marina markup
Founded 1953 by the Kadagan brothers from Yugoslavia — the peninsula's archetype of stew-pot Anatolian home cooking, still in family hands
All-day kitchen on the yacht slips — French-leaning breakfast through midnight cocktails, run by a working chef line rather than a brand operator
Çeşme's fish-and-meze institution since 1981
A seaside lobster house run by a host who has held the room for years
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Pozitif's Aegean outpost in Aya Yorgi cove — a thousand-cover beach with citrus gardens, a music programme that earns the room, June through September
Polished Aya Yorgi cove daytime that turns DJ-led after dark — Tayu sushi kitchen on site, the contemporary half of the cove's beach-club pair
The peninsula's serious music-and-beach venue
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