Desperately seeking Bodrum spirit!

How exactly does one define the spirit of Bodrum? Once, it was the sleepy little fishing village, with its main income being sponge diving. It was a typical idyllic Aegean town adorned with a magnificent castle, a remembrance of a distant glorious past. Known in ancient times as Halicarnassus, it was once home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Halicarnassus' Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

The town initially attracted intellectuals, writers and artists, then slowly turned into a hub of tourism, especially the favorite destination of celebrities and jet-set. The first nucleus of intellectuals, mainly writers and painters, flooded the town following the writer Cevat Şakir Karaağaçlı, later famed with the pen name Halikarnas Balıkçısı, literally the Fisherman of Halicarnassus were sent to exile here. His fellow artists passionately painted the typical cubic white-washed stone houses with blue doors and windows, occasionally spotted with a cascade of fuchsia bougainvillea aka paper flowers. The spirit of Bodrum was captured in those paintings, creating a romantic nostalgia for a pure tranquil remote sea town, reminiscent of times when Leonard Cohen discovered the Greek island Hydra. Eventually, Bodrum gained undisputed fame being the ultimate tourism destination.

However, we all know tourism is a two-sided blade. Change was inevitable. Today, even the newcomers to Bodrum claim that it doesn't have the old spirit anymore. Constantly changing, constantly being built up with new constructions, with brand new places opening up every year, Bodrum is certainly no longer the Bodrum of old times, and it is doubtful that it belongs to Bodrum locals now. The true spirit of a place can only be preserved with its inhabitants, the people who are the “raison d'être” of that place. To sustain the Bodrum spirit what is always essential is to preserve the local, sometimes it is also a virtue to remain constant and to resist change. But standing against the winds of change is much more difficult than one might think.

Let’s wind back to the past few decades of change in Bodrum. The 1990s was a period of many experiments in hotel architecture in Türkiye. Buildings were being erected one after the other in holiday resorts, each building was seeking to be different, and completely different styles were emerging in the name of differentiation. When The Marmara Bodrum Hotel first opened, it followed a very unusual path, especially in interior design. With the design of architect Ersen Gürsel and his partner late Haluk Erar, the building revealed a line respectful to the architectural texture of Bodrum. The interior architecture of the building was handed over to French architect and designer Christian Allart in collaboration with Ardıç Gürsel, one of the family members who owned the hotel. Looking at the past, we can now say that Gürsel’s decision to collaborate with such a talent was a visionary approach, she herself was involved in many creations that were included in the interior design. Nicknamed “Mösyö,” Turkish for “Monsieur,” the architect's playful designs created by using local elements were new for the time, and their colorful approach full of humor from local to universal attracted attention. Artworks were also included in the design in an unprecedented way. Artist Mevlüt Akyıldız's cheerful witty sculptures and Sıtkı Kösemen's photographs of Bodrum people were spotted randomly on all corners of the hotel. Hotel manager Volkan Öksüz says, “All of the artifacts and even the design of furniture are preserved in the same way. A customer who came here in 1999 will find the same armchair in the same corner as she or he has sat in back then, even the nail of the pictures on the wall has not changed.” After 25 years, the interior has remained unchanged and preserved exactly the same, astonishingly still retaining the same freshness and surprise factor.

Permanence in design is an elusive quality. What really struck me at The Marmara Bodrum was the timeliness of the portraits by Sıtkı Kösemen, an architect and photographer, also my friend from the METU Architecture Department. On the walls of the hotel, Bodrum people from a quarter of a century ago wink at us. The photographs are from his 1998 album Deep Bodrum/Deep Bodrum: https://www.sitkikosemen.com/works/bodrum-deep/

Among the portraits are famous people who left their mark on Bodrum such as the songwriter and founder of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegün and influential poet İlhan Berk, but with anonymous titles such as businessman and poet. The locals of Bodrum, on the other hand, appear with names such as milkman, peasant, farmer, fisherman or sponge diver. Everyone, locals and then newcomers, who make Bodrum what it is, poses for the camera at an equal distance. They were the people who made the Bodrum spirit.

Last week, while dining at the hotel’s restaurant, I suddenly realized that the Bodrum spirit is not only living in the portraits on the wall but in the plates of chef Hakan Süve. If the same pictures were taken today for Tuti's kitchen, from the producers to the customers, similar portraits can be taken for the menu. The hotel once embraced the Bodrum spirit, both with its architecture and its people, and today, Süve continues the same line at Tuti restaurant. He sources the products that go into the kitchen locally from Bodrum, everything comes from the fishmonger to the local weekly market to the neighborhood bakery, he establishes an organic bond with the producers. Just as Sıtkı's faces from Bodrum wink at customers in the corridors from decades ago, the products of the people from Bodrum tickle the palates of the guests on Hakan's plates. The foraged greens sold by the women in the market go into the fritters, the sole from Ortakent curls up on a sauce of wild fennel, and the dishes are laced with Bodrum's olive oil. Most of the ingredients that go into the kitchen come from Bodrum and the surrounding area. Special products such as Yalıçiftlik olive oil, Köyceğiz honey, Gökova sesame and Fethiye figs are all from local producers. Reflecting the spirit of Bodrum, which had been the starting point of the hotel's foundation, has found its echo in Tuti's cuisine today.

Süve, a native of Muğla, is one of the chefs of Cooks' Alliance affiliated with the Slow Food Bodrum Convivium, named funnily “Yaveş Gari,” an expression meaning “Slow Down” in the local dialect. Cooks' Alliance adopts the “Good, Clean, Fair” principles of the Slow Food movement, and supports seasonality and locality, primarily aiming to sustain local producers. He uses products included in the “Ark of Taste” list for unique products that are about to disappear, such as Köyceğiz, Dalyan Kefal Caviar, Bodrum Gemici Peksimeti, Bodrum Gambilya Broad Beans and Milas Nettle Noodles. Süve also attended the Istanbul Cordon Bleu program in 2022 with the support of the hotel and graduated with honors. His cuisine blends traditional cuisine with new techniques. In the recent Michelin guide, Tuti's cuisine was described as “Traditional recipes are revamped with great skill and local produce,” proving that the chef blends the local with the global. He poses to the camera happily with Huri Can, a vivacious self-thought lady, producing her own olive oil brand Bekiroğlu, in Yalıkavak. Just as the locals and the newcomers posed to the camera back then, it might be possible to take similar portraits after a quarter of a century, tracing the local producers. Capturing the Bodrum spirit can still be possible, maybe on a plate representing the true taste of the town.