Fatih Tutak

Fatih Tutak is the Turkish chef and owner of TURK Fatih Tutak in Istanbul. Born in Istanbul on 31 August 1985, he has built his work around the belief that Turkish cuisine can be revisited without being loosened from its origins. His kitchen treats tradition as material to be studied, handled, and remade, not simply preserved. Research, curiosity, and the constant development of new techniques shape his approach. Bolu Mengen Culinary School gave him his first formal grounding, before he moved through kitchens that demanded precision, pace, and control.

His training was cumulative, with each stage adding a different discipline to the same question of how a cuisine can move forward without losing its core. He began his professional path as an apprentice under Paul Pairet in Turkey, then worked as chef at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, Nihonryori Ryugin in Tokyo, and Noma in Copenhagen. These roles widened his technical frame while keeping the same challenge in view: how to carry a cuisine’s essence across contexts and still make it legible in a new setting.

Between 2015 and 2017, Tutak was Head Chef at The Dining Room of The House of Sathorn in Bangkok, then Director of Culinary Operations there from 2017 to 2019. The move from leading the kitchen to directing its wider operation marked a shift in responsibility, with coherence remaining central to the work. Since 2019, he has been owner and chef at TURK Fatih Tutak in Istanbul. The restaurant is the direct expression of his method, reinterpreting Turkish cuisine through research, curiosity, and new techniques while keeping roots and traditions intact.

Istanbul matters because it is both birthplace and base. He works from the same city he came from, and his focus is not return for its own sake, but close examination of inherited material and its re-entry into a contemporary register. The title owner and chef signals full responsibility for the room and the line. His work extends beyond menu authorship to the whole language of the restaurant, where heritage is treated not as an endpoint but as a working method.

He has said that, without falling away from their morals and by using the products from their geography, they are creating a new alphabet for Turkish cuisine and reinterpreting familiar tastes in a modern, elegant, and simple way. Taken together with his emphasis on research and constant development, the statement defines a practice grounded in Turkish cuisine while pushing it into new forms. His signature dish includes From my Mom, a name that places family memory within restaurant language and reflects the balance of inheritance and reinvention that runs through his cooking.

His honors include Michelin Guide two stars, Best Chef Winner, Best Restaurant Winner, Michelin Plate, Best 43rd Restaurant, and Best 36th Restaurant. The recognition charts the growing visibility of a chef whose work has been noted across several years. What the list points to is consistency: a practice built on rigor, curiosity, and a steady insistence on keeping Turkish cuisine rooted while giving it a new form.