The Snails of Alaçatı: L’Escargot Restaurant

It is a pleasant experience to get caught in the rain when you’re idly striding down the street…

 

Given that you do not have any worries over getting wet in the rain!

 

When your hands go directly into your pockets, your paces softly slow down and you continue to walk at a slow pace with a smile put on your face by the sound of the raindrops.

 

Another free spirit who also enjoys rainy weather is definitely a snail. After the rain, you can see lots of these calm mollusks in the streets as well as in the kitchens!

 

The snails have become one of the staple ingredients in the French cuisine thanks to the culinary choices of Louis XIV of France who ascended the throne early in his life. As a great choice to start off a dinner, the dish is mostly consumed as hors d’oeuvre.

 

“L’Escargot” is a type of land snail dish originated in France. As it alone doesn’t mean anything to some people, once bathed in its famous sauce made from butter, parsley and garlic, you can see everyone’s mouth starts watering.

 

Named by the Chef Yılmaz Öztürk, L’Escargot Restaurant is located in Alaçatı. When someone talks about the restaurants serving snails around Alaçatı, L’Escargot has definitely been one of the first ones to come the minds of people.

 

Good, Clean and Fair Food

 

Opened in April 2012, L’Escargot been known for its motto, thus its principle: “good, clean and fair food”. Since then, to act in accordance with their principle, the restaurant has been serving only the kind of food planted by the eatery or bought from the local farmers.

 

The first time I met with the Chef Yılmaz Öztürk in 2007, he was working for Nars Ilıca. This young talent also worked for several popular companies like Four Seasons, Mövenpick Hotel and Kayra Wine Academy. He’s been awarded with a silver medal by Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. I hope he will thrive in his job and never stop trying. Especially now that the restaurant has transferred Alican Saygın from “Andre Restaurant” in Singapour where I love and visit often, they will both pull off a great job in my opinion.

 

With a design inspired by art deco style, the restaurant is located among ages-old stone houses. While the interior design of the restaurant offers you a warm welcome with its big furniture, candelabra and warm colors, its garden has a more minimal design with its snail figures on the wall and tables in lighter colors.

 

When the Chef Yılmaz started to run his restaurant, I showed my support by my frequent visits in its early times, but then decided to give a break to these visits for a while. When I went back to the restaurant, its vicinity was even more crowded and its negative impact on the restaurant increased. Well, I was actually very upset to eat in a disturbing atmosphere with all the jarring, unappealing music coming from all different locations close to the restaurant.

 

Besides the a la carte menu, L’Escargot also has an amuse-bouche menu (155 TL) which have several dishes chosen from the a la carte menu. To pair with the amuse bouche, they also serve 5 different glasses of wine (95 TL), produced by the local wineries.

 

The night started off with chard roots right after a loaf of sourdough and some fumed butter with lavender. Flavored with lemongrass vinegar, this amuse-bouche was a delightful starting choice in harmony with the vicinity of Alaçatı. But as I am personally a bit sensitive to salt, I found it a bit saltier in fact.

 

Cold green tomato soup was a great soup also containing fumed yoghurt. I think this refreshing dish was the best gaspaccio prepared by the Chef Yılmaz who is fond of gaspaccios and also a skillful cook when it comes to cooking them.

 

Covered by slices of cucumber, raw shrimps was a great choice with its balanced taste and refreshing aroma, and its harmony with the season.

 

Our next dish was pickled fresh fish which was served in wooden spoons. Flavored with grilled red pepper sauce, it had a good balance of presentation and taste.

 

As I mentioned many times before, I love offal dishes. I would have preferred the lamb liver with a tastier and simpler presentation rather than served with tacos and covered in gel.

 

Our last choice of starters was home cured cold cut. It was a colorful dish served with sea fennel pesto, tahin veal farce and dark chocolate. Although I enjoyed its taste, I’d recommend the restaurant to reduce its portion size a tad.

 

Escargot which also gave its name to the restaurant was a rather fatty dish. As we couldn’t enjoy its unique taste, unfortunately it was the weakest link in the chain that night.

 

The fresh catch of that day was sea robin. It was accompanied by cabbage leaves cooked in tandoor, glasswort flavored with fish sauce. It was above average both in its place on the menu or its taste.

                                                                                                  

The star of the night was mantı which was filled with ox tail and cooked in tandoor for 7 hours. Having been wrapped in mantı sheets flavored with cinnamon, it was served with yoghurt and sweet pepper oil. As I enjoyed it a lot, you should have a try at this creative interpretation of mantı too!

 

Chicken liver and heart brulée was served with a delicate presentation. Chicken legs looked like a lollipop and were flavored with corn and vanilla. Although it was a successful dish, it could have been lighter as to keep it in accordance with the rest of the menu and the green environment of Alaçatı.

 

Following the chicken legs lollipop, our meal was lamb tenderloin. It was served with carrots and citrus fruits, and also pearl onions filled with bee’s pollen.

 

To have a sweet closing at L’Escargot, we had refreshing rice pudding (sütlaç) ice cream which was served with sour cherry sauce and chocolate; Çeşme lemon and mint with thyme, fennel and olive gel; and finally chocolate with rose accompanied by merengue and strawberry ice cream.

 

Local and Cozy

 

So in my visit to L’Escargot Restaurant after a long break, the taste of the dishes was alright although they seemed to have done nothing for the restaurant to become a bit more outstanding and meet my expectations.

 

I really have some high expectations from the young Chef Yılmaz. But I think there are two points that needs to be attended to by the Chef Yılmaz and also the Chef Kemal who’s at the helm of Alancha which had also been featured on the site as well:

 

First off, I strictly recommend them not to feature any heavy food on their local-food-based menus, because it doesn’t go with the climate and cuisine of Alaçatı. I think, instead of herbs, vegetables and seafood which can be complemented with meat products; foie gras, chicken liver and such heavy foods with cream –although that they could be successful- do not match with the cuisine of Alaçatı laden with various herbs and seafood.

 

Secondly, they don’t spare enough time to have a chat with their customers and to focus on their comments in the end of the night. As the gourmet world in Turkey is already suffering from the lack of communication between the chefs, ignoring the ideas of the customers means that the chefs are turning their back on the possibilities that would improve their restaurants.

 

I am well aware of the potential that the Chef Yılmaz and his restaurant L’Escargot have and so I expect a faster and notable improvement from the restaurant.

 

Bon appétit and enjoy the taste of life…

 

L’Escargot Restaurant Alaçatı

 

www.lescargot.com.tr

 

3000. Sk, 35937 Çeşme

Türkiye

+90 232 716 67 00