Signature Dish: Gironda

A brief note about Signature Dish.  Kalkan has quite a fair share of restaurants, and each year many new restaurants pop up beside the classics that remain season after season.  To create our Signature Dish posts, we have partnered with many restaurants in Kalkan to discover not only their signature dish – the dish that best represents the restaurant it is made in – but also how the dish is made, where ingredients are sourced, and a bit of the chef’s and/or owner’s philosophy on food, cooking, and the restaurant experience.  Signature Dish will be a recurring feature on Turquoise Collected.

(Another quick note from me:  For years, I've been saying that I'd love to be a food photographer.  With the creation of Turquoise Collected, and more specifically, the Signature Dish feature, I basically gave myself the go-ahead to let loose and pursue that dream.  Well, I may have let a little too loose, because after shooting for these posts, I discovered that I had taken rather a large amount of photos.  I'll try to keep these posts from being too photo-heavy, but really, who doesn't love looking at food?)


And now, without further ado, Signature Dish: Gironda.

Your chef: Bayram

After finishing high school, Bayram went on to train for a year in cooking.  This was followed by over ten years working his way from restaurant kitchen to restaurant kitchen (along with an eighteen-month stint in the army as personal chef to a three-star general) studying and mastering many different styles of cooking including French, Italian, and Mexican.  2011 marks Bayram's first season at Gironda.


But enough of that, on to the food!  Gironda's signature appetizer:

Grilled Calamari with Fried Haloumi Cheese - be still my heart.

As Jimmy, Gironda's owner, notes in the video below, what makes this a signature dish is that instead of frying the calamari, as many other restaurants do, Gironda grills the calamari for a much lighter dish, making this an excellent choice in the warmer weather that can occur in July and August.

And Gironda's signature main course:

Chicken Gironda
(That lovely dappled light, by the way, is created by the rather large, rather beautiful, fifty-five (!) year-old mulberry tree, located in Gironda's central courtyard.)

Chicken Gironda is a stir-fry of chicken (marinated and fried) and vegetables (julienned red and green pepper, carrot, zucchini, and onion) which makes use of a mix of sauces and ginger to give the dish its signature flavor.

The chicken and vegetable mixture is served atop a bed of hand-mashed potatoes (with a little cheese smashed in for extra flavor).

I want that whisk!

After working hard in the kitchen and preparing their signature meal, Bayram, Jimmy, and some of the kitchen's staff very obligingly posed for a picture.

Bayram on the left and Jimmy on the right with the kitchen staff.

Gironda is open for dinner everyday.  Diners enjoy views of the harbor and Old Town from atop one of two rooftop terraces.  Reservations are recommended.


And finally, the obligatory kitchen pyrotechnics shot:

Stir-frying the vegetables for Chicken Gironda.