Afyonkarahisar Trip

May 3–5, 2024 Kitchen Friends were in Afyonkarahisar last weekend for the first stop of their 2024 traditional gastronomy tours. 
Selected in 2019 as Turkey’s third gastronomy city under the UNESCO Creative Cities Network—following Gaziantep and Hatay—Afyonkarahisar is known not only for its meat dishes and sucuk brands but also for its agricultural products such as potatoes, legumes, and poppy seeds—and boasts a rich culinary tradition. The Friends of Cuisine explored the flavors of Afyonkarahisar by visiting local eateries, delicatessens, Turkish delight shops, and street-side katmer vendors in the city’s bustling marketplace. Thanks to efforts to document and preserve local flavors, the city now boasts some fifty dishes and products with protected geographical indications, local delicacies such as keşkek, classic and sour cherry-flavored ekmek kadayıf, labada dolma, göce köfte, flower okra soup, and eggplant börek were sampled. In addition to the Gastronomy Museum and the Republic Sucuk Museum, the culinary enthusiasts also visited the city’s natural and historical sites as well as the Afyon Museum, and they didn’t miss the chance to climb Kocatepe. On the final day of the Afyonkarahisar gastronomy tour—whose flavors lingered on the palate— they visited Aşçı Bacaksız—a recipient of the “Single-Dish Restaurant” award at the Culinary Friends Association’s Golden Spoon Awards—and sampled the restaurant’s signature menu consisting of lamb kebab and bread kadayif with buffalo clotted cream.