Deli Ağa Restaurant

Deli Ağa runs from the strand at 3754 Sokak in Yalıçiftlik and the room is the Çiftlik shorthand for the older-peninsula register: a dozen tables on a stone deck, half of them set in twenty centimetres of shallows, the kitchen run by Mustafa Bey and the family on a small cover that opens at one in the afternoon and closes at ten in the evening. The card is short — meze tray off the cold counter, the day's fish (orfoz, sinarit, çipura, levrek) on a wood grill, kalamar, ahtapot, a rakı pour and a small wine list. The room is the one the peninsula's older guests bring out-of-town family to when they want to demonstrate that Bodrum still has the village fish dinner that does not require a marina reservation. Reservation pressure is moderate by Yalıçiftlik standards; the small cover means a phone call the day before holds the front table.