Gaziantep Kebab Masters: Küşleme, Ali Nazik, Seasonal Kebabs and Food Museums

While other southeastern cities are known for a single signature skewer, Gaziantep's kebab repertoire changes with every month of the agricultural calendar, pairing minced lamb with green garlic in spring, loquats and sour cherries in early summer, fresh walnuts and aubergines in late summer, and quinces, apples and truffles (keme) in autumn and winter. Here is what to order and where the local masters grill.

Five Signature Gaziantep Kebabs and Stews

1. Küşleme (Marinated Lamb Tenderloin Fillet): each lamb yields only two small, fat-free strips of tenderloin (bonfile) weighing 120 to 150 grams along the spine. Marinated purely in olive oil, milk or onion juice without heavy spices and seared for three minutes over oak embers, it cuts with a fork like butter. Where to eat it: Kebapçı Halil Usta (located right behind the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, note that Halil Usta is a lunch-only institution open from in the late morning in the afternoon when the meat runs out; order a "mixed half-küşleme, half-simit kebabı" served in hot copper bowls alongside a mountain of chopped tomato-walnut-pomegranate gavurdağı salad).
2. Ali Nazik Kebabı (Smoky Aubergine, Garlic Yoghurt & Lamb): named after a 16th-century visit by Sultan Selim I, who asked whose "gentle hand" (eli nazik) had prepared such a dish. Kemer aubergines are charred over open embers until smoky, mashed warm with thick strained garlic yoghurt and melted butter, and topped with either charcoal-grilled minced lamb or seared cubes of lamb fillet. Where to eat it: İmam Çağdaş (in the Copper Bazaar), Çulcuoğlu or Aşina.
3. Simit Kebabı (Oruk) and Altı Ezmeli: minced lamb kneaded with fine bulgur wheat (called simit in Antep), pistachios and spices, grilled on wide flat skewers; or altı ezmeli, where skewered meat rests over a bed of ember-charred, peeled and crushed tomatoes.
4. Yuvalama (Gaziantep's Festive Dish): tiny chickpea-sized balls of rice flour and minced meat rolled by hand between the palms of the women of the family, steamed and simmered in a tangy warm yoghurt soup with chickpeas, lamb shanks and sizzling mint-butter.
5. Nohut Dürümü (Chickpea Wrap, The Ultimate Budget Lunch): spicy slow-simmered bone-broth chickpeas mashed inside hot tırnaklı pide bread with red onion, parsley and crispy fries at street carts like Dürümcü Recep Usta.

The Emine Göğüş Culinary Museum (Mutfak Müzesi)

Right below the southern wall of Gaziantep Castle inside a restored 1904 stone mansion sits Turkey's first dedicated culinary museum, displaying antique tinned copper cauldrons, winter pantry storage jars and the traditional communal picnic culture (sahre) of old Antep.